Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/138

126 "It is a spade the man is carrying!" I cried excitedly. "Look down there! They've just been burying something!"

Her quick eyes followed the direction I indicated, and she answered —

"I really believe they have concealed something!"

Then when we had allowed the men to get beyond hearing, we both slipped down to the other side of the boulder and there discovered many signs that the earth had been hurriedly excavated and only just replaced.

Quicker than it takes to describe the exciting incident which followed, we broke down the branch of a tree and with it commenced moving the freshly-disturbed earth, which was still soft and easily removed.

Muriel found a dead branch in the vicinity, and both of us set to work with a will, eager to ascertain what was hidden there. That something had certainly been concealed was, to us, quite evident, but what it really was we could not surmise. The hole they had dug did not seem large enough to admit a human body, yet leaves had been carefully strewn over the place which, if approached from any other point than the high-up one whence we had seen it, would arouse no suspicion that the ground had ever been interfered with.

Digging with a piece of wood was hard and laborious work, and it was a long time before we removed sufficient earth to make a hole of any size. But Muriel exerted all her energy, and both