Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/234

 Dick stood up with a look of disgust on his handsome face:—

"Come away, Art; it's too terrible to see a man degraded to this pitch. Leave the wretch alone with his god!" Murdock turned to us, and said with savage glee:—

"No! shtay! Sthay an' see me threasure! It'll make ye happy to think of afther! An' ye can tell Phelim Joyce what I found in me own land—the land what I tuk from him." We stayed.

Murdock took his spade and began to remove the filth and rubbish from the mass. And in a very few moments his discovery proclaimed itself.

There lay before us a rusty iron gun-carriage! This was what we had dragged with so much effort from the bottom of the bog; and beside it Murdock sat down with a scowl of black disappointment.

"Come away!" said Dick. "Poor devil, I pity him! It is hard to find even a god of that kind worthless!" And so we turned and left Murdock sitting beside the gun-carriage and the slime, with a look of baffled greed which I hope never to see on any face again.

We went to a brook at the foot of the hill, Andy being by this time in the sheebeen about half a mile off. There we cleansed ourselves as well as we could from the hideous slime and filth of the bog, and then walked to the top of the hill to let the breeze freshen us up a bit if possible. After we had been there for a while, Dick said:—