"'Ere, let me try," said Mum, impatiently.

She knelt over the hole to get her bearings, and then plunged her arm
into the gap. Jonah and Ada, on their knees, watched in silence.

At last, with a cry of despair, Mrs Yabsley sat up on the floor.

There was no doubt, the treasure was gone! In this extremity, her wit,
her philosophy, her temper, her very breath deserted her, and she wept.
She looked the picture of misery as the tears rolled down her face.
Jonah and Ada stared at one another in dismay, each wondering if this
story of a hidden treasure was a delusion of the old woman's mind. Like
her neighbours, who lived from hand to mouth, she was given to dreaming of
imaginary riches falling on her from the clouds. But her grief was too
real for doubt.

"Well, if it ain't there, w'ere is it?" cried Jonah, angrily, feeling that
he, too, had been robbed. "If it's gone, somebody took it. Are yer sure
yer niver got a few beers in, an' started skitin' about it?" He looked
hard at Ada.

"Niver a word about it 'ave I breathed to a livin' soul till this day,"
wailed Mrs Yabsley, mopping her eyes with her apron.

"Rye buck!" said Jonah. "'Ere goes! I'll find it, if the blimey house
falls down. Gimme that axe."

The floor-boards cracked and split as he ripped them up. Small beetles
and insects, surprised by the light, scrambled with desperate haste into