Rosa hung over the orifice above, encouraging him, inquiring eagerly as to his progress. During his frequent breathing-spells he could discern her white face dimly illumined by the candle- light from below.
After he had worked for an hour or two, he made a report: "It begins to look as if there really was a bulkhead or a door in there."
The girl clapped her hands and laughed with delight. "Do hurry, dear; I'm dying of suspense."
O'Reilly groaned: "That fellow, Sebastian, knew his business. This cement is like steel, and I'm afraid of breaking my crowbar."
Rosa found a leaf, folded a kiss into it, and dropped it to him. "That will give you strength," she declared.
O'Reilly lost all count of time after a while and he was incredulous when Jacket came to warn him that daylight was less than an hour away. "Why, I haven't started!" he protested. He discovered, much to his surprise, that he was ready to drop from fatigue and that his hands were torn and blistered; when he had climbed the rope to the upper air he fell exhausted in the deep grass. "I--I'm not myself at all," he apologized; "nothing to eat, you know. But the work will go faster now, for I've made a beginning."
"Do you still think--" Rosa hesitated to voice the question which trembled on her lips.
"I'll know for sure to-night." He directed Jacket to replace the planks over the well; then the three of them stole away.
O'Reilly spent most of that day in a profound stupor of exhaustion, while Rosa watched anxiously over him. Jacket, it seemed, had peacefully slumbered on picket duty, so he occupied himself by grinding away at his knife. The last scraps of food disappeared that evening.
When night fell and it came time to return to the top of La Cumbre, O'Reilly asked himself if his strength would prove sufficient for the task in hand. He was spiritless, sore, weak; he ached in every bone and muscle, and it required all his determination to propel himself up the hill. He wondered if he were wise thus to sacrifice his waning energies on a hope so forlorn as this, but by now he had begun to more than half believe in the existence of the Varona treasure and he felt an almost irresistible curiosity to learn what secret, if any, was concealed behind those water-soaked timbers at the bottom of the well. He realized, of course, that every hour he remained here, now that food and money were gone, lessened the chances of escape; but, on the other hand, he reasoned, with equal force, that if he had indeed stumbled upon the missing hoard salvation for all of them was assured. The stake, it seemed to him, was worth the hazard.