choking whisper, as if he were being
strangled:

'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't be lost
sight of for a moment.'

'Why mustn't he?' asked Venus, also strangling.

'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits when
you come in to-night. I've found something.'

'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, so
that they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators.

'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look for
it. We must have an eye upon him instantly.'

Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and
peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the Mounds
made the dark yard darker. 'If not a double swindler,' whispered Wegg,
'why a dark lantern? We could have seen what he was about, if he had
carried a light one. Softly, this way.'

Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery set
in ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him at his peculiar
trot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He knows the place by
heart,' muttered Silas, 'and don't need to turn his lantern on, confound
him!' But he did turn it on, almost in that same instant, and flashed
its light upon the first of the Mounds.

'Is that the spot?' asked Venus in a whisper.

'He's warm,' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm. He's
close. I think he must be going to look for it. What's that he's got in
his hand?'

'A shovel,' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it, remember, fifty
times as well as either of us.'

'If he looks for it and misses it, partner,' suggested Wegg, 'what shall
we do?'

'First of all, wait till he does,' said Venus.

Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the mound
turned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on once more, and
was seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising the
lantern little by little until he held it up at arm's length, as if he
were examining the condition of the whole surface.

'That can't be the spot too?' said Venus.

'No,' said Wegg, 'he's getting cold.'

'It strikes me,' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether any
one has been groping about there.'

'Hush!' returned Wegg, 'he's getting colder and colder.--Now he's
freezing!'

This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off
again, and on again, and being visible at th