were choking in the throat at once. He was on me too quickly
for me to cry out. I could only lie still, cackling for breath, while
the fierce face glowered down on me. I understood him to say that he
would have my windpipe out if I said a word. I suppose he saw that I was
only a very frightened boy; for his clutch upon me relaxed, after a few
awful, gasping moments. When he loosed his hold, his great hand pawed
over my throat till he had me by the scruff of the neck. He drew me over
towards the spring, as one would draw a puppy. Then, still crouching in
the fern, he hurried me to a single stunted sloe-bush which grew there.
"Go down, you," he said, giving me a shove towards the bush. "Down th'
'ole."

Just behind the sloe-bush, under a fringe of immense ferns, was an
opening in the earth, about eighteen inches high, by two feet across.
It was like a large rabbit or fox earth, except that the mouth of it was
not worn bare. I did not like the thought of going down th' 'ole; but
with this great griping fist on my nape there was not much sense in
saying so. I wormed my way in, helped on by prods from the file. It was
a melancholy moment when my head passed beyond the last filtering of
light into the tomb's blackness, where not even insects lived. After a
moment of scrambling I found that the passage was big enough for me to
go on all fours. It was a dry passage, too, which seemed strange to me;
but on reaching out with my hand I felt that the walls were lined with
well laid stones, unmortared. The roof above me was also of stone. You
may wonder why I did not shoot this ruffian with my pistol. You boys
think that if you had a pistol you would shoot any one who threatened
you. You would not. When the moment comes, it is not so easily disposed
of. Besides, a filthy, cursing pirate on your throat checks your natural
calm most strangely.

The passage led into the swell of the rampart for about twenty yards,
where it opened into a dimly lighted chamber about four feet high. A
little blink of light came through a rabbit hole, at the end of which
I saw a spray of gorse with the sunlight on it. I could see by the dim
light that the chamber was built of unmortared stones, very cleverly
laid. The floor of it was greasier than the passage had been, but still
it was not damp. On one side it had a bed of heather stalks, on the
other there was something dark which felt like cold meat. The man came
grunting in behind me, clinking his leg-