ked and left standing on account of
its weight and the party of toilers busy in the weird gloom of the
temple paused at last as if half-stunned by the feeling that had come
upon them after two men had tried to lift the seated figure of some
deity.

"Yes, we can't take that," said Briscoe dismally. "We could carry it
out, I daresay, but it would go through the bottom of the boat. We
shall have to start that old furnace and melt these big things down."

Just then two of the men who been carrying a load out on to the terrace
came back, bearing a message from the captain.

"He says, gentlemen," said one of the men, "that it will be as much as
he dare take aboard when we've let down all we've got waiting outside."

"Nonsense!" cried Brace; "why, we have ever so much more to send out
yet. We can't leave all these small things."

"How much weight do you think you have taken out, my lads?" said Sir
Humphrey, who was working hard with the rest.

"'Bout half a ton, sir, I should say," replied one of the men.

"Let's go out and have a talk to the skipper," said Briscoe. "I say,
chaps," he added jocosely, "fair play and fair sharing; no pocketing
either of those big images while we're gone."

"All right, sir," said one of the men: "we won't; but to speak square
and honest, I was longing to collar that biggest one at the back there,
him with the sign of the sun on his front."

"We must fetch them another time," said Briscoe; and he followed the
brothers out on to the terrace, where, dully gleaming in the sunshine,
quite a couple of hundredweight of the strange objects connected with
the ancient worship lay waiting to be lowered down.

"Well, captain," said Sir Humphrey, "what does this mean--you can't take
any more?"

"I'm going to risk what you've got out already, sir," was the reply.
"According to the men there's about three hundredweight to lower yet."

"At a rough guess, yes," said Brace.

"That's the very outside then, and we shall have to beat and hammer a
lot of these together with the axeheads to make them take up less room.
Look for yourselves."

A long and earnest look was directed below, where the boats were packed
beneath the thwarts and fore and aft with the treasure, and presented a
strange aspect.

"Yes, he's quite right," said Briscoe, with a sigh. "Oh, if we only had
one of those coal-barges that I've seen lying at anchor in your Thames."

"Let's be content, Briscoe, and get these figures abo