Up with your
crowbar, and we'll soon exorcise the demon of Sasassa Valley!"
I was so astounded that for a moment I stood speechless with surprise,
gazing at the treasure which had so unexpectedly fallen into our hands.
"Here, hand me the crowbar," said Tom. "Now, by using this little round
knob which projects from the cliff here as a fulcrum, we may be able to
lever it off. Yes; there it goes. I never thought it could have come so
easily. Now, Jack, the sooner we get back to our hut and then down to
Cape Town, the better."
We wrapped up our treasure, and made our way across the hills toward
home. On the way, Tom told me how, while a law student in the Middle
Temple, he had come upon a dusty pamphlet in the library, by one Jans
van Hounym, which told of an experience very similar to ours, which
had befallen that worthy Dutchman in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and which resulted in the discovery of a luminous diamond. This
tale it was which had come into Tom's head as he listened to honest Dick
Wharton's ghost-story, while the means which he had adopted to verify
his supposition sprang from his own fertile Irish brain.
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