his long strides, hither and thither amid
the rubbish-heaps, so slow to disappear and reveal those underground
passages and hidden vaults, by which the fancies of both of us were
obsessed.

We had worked for a week before we made a clearance of the ground floor.
Then at last we came upon a solidly built stone staircase, winding
downward. After clearing away the debris with which it was choked to a
depth of some twenty or thirty steps, we came to a stout wooden door
studded with nails.

"The dungeon at last," said the "King."

"The kitchens, I bet," said I.

After some battering, the door gave way with a crash, a mouldering
breath as of the grave met our nostrils, and a cloud of bats flew in our
faces, and set the negroes screaming. A huge cavernous blackness was
before us. The "King" called for lanterns.

As we raised these above our heads, and peered into the darkness, we
both gave a laugh.

"'_Yo--ho--ho--and a bottle of rum,_'" sang the "King."

For all along the walls stood, or lay prone on trestles, a silent
company of hogsheads, festooned with cobwebs, like huge black wings. It
was the pirate's wine cellar!

* * * * *

Such was our discovery for that day, but there is another matter which I
must mention--the fact that, somehow, the news of our excavation seemed
to have got down to the settlement. It is a curious fact, as the "King"
observed, that if a man should start to dig for gold in the centre of
Sahara, with no possible means of communicating with his fellows, on the
third day, there would not fail to be some one to drop in and remark on
the fineness of the weather. So it was with us. As a general thing, not
once in a month did a human being wander into that wilderness where the
"King" had made his home. There was nothing to bring them there, and, as
I have made clear, the way was not easy. Yet we had hardly begun work
when one and another idle nigger strolled in from the settlement, and
stood grinning his curiosity at our labours.

"I believe it's them black parrots has told them," said old Tom,
pointing to a bird common in the islands--something like a small crow
with a parrot's beak. "They're very knowing birds."

I saw that Tom was serious. So I tried to draw him out.

"What language do they speak, Tom?" I asked.

"Them, sar? They speak Egyptian," he answered, with perfect solemnity.

"Egyptian!"

"Yes, sar," said Tom.

"Egyptian?--but who's going to un