"Yes," I said; "but we had better be careful not to tell anybody
else. I wonder what they do here in this hut; I suppose they hide
their things here till it's safe to take them away."

"Where do they take them?" asked Hugh.

"Away into Dartmoor," I said. "And there there are wonderful places,
so old Evans the postboy told me."

"What sort of places?" asked Hugh.

"Oh, caves covered over with gorse and fern, and old copper and tin
mines, which were worked by the ancient Britons. They go under the
ground for miles, so old Evans told me, with passages, and steps up
and down, and great big rooms cut in the rock. And then there are bogs
where you can sink things till it's quite safe to take them up. The
bog-water keeps them quite sound; it doesn't rot them like ordinary
water. Sometimes men fall into the bogs, and the marsh-mud closes over
them. That's the sort of place Dartmoor is."

Hugh was very much interested in all this, but he was a quiet boy, not
fond of talking. "Yes," he said; "but where do the things go
afterwards--who takes them?"

"Nobody knows, so old Evans said," I answered; "but they go, they get
taken. People come at night and carry them to the towns, little by
little, and from the market towns, they get to the cities, no one
knows how. I dare say this hut has been full of things--valuable lace
and silk, and all sorts of wines and spirits--waiting for some one to