I have seen that they have done the like elsewhere in the village." "Aye," said Spray, "they have heard some of our tales, and they have dug where we would not, for it spoils a house, and the wife's temper also, to meddle with the good stone floor." Now it seemed to me that here was a likelihood that there was truth in the old tales, and that I had lit on the lost hiding place of which some memory yet remained even from the days when OElla's men took the town from the iron workers five hundred years and more ago, when the might of Rome had passed.
"There is somewhat that I have found in this place," I said.

"Come and see what it is." Wondering, Olaf and Wulfnoth climbed down the ladder after me, and Relf did but stay to find a torch before he followed us.

Then I showed them the stone and the hollow behind it, and the earl called for the crowbar that was left by the outlaws, and with a stroke or two easily broke out the rest of the stone, and the glare of the torch shone into the place that it had so long sealed.
It was a chamber in the wall, and maybe a yard square each way.

The stone had not filled all its width or depth of mouth, but was, as it were, a sealed door to be broken and replaced by another.

Then we could see that the canvas I had thought that I had felt was indeed the loose folds of the tied mouths of bags that were neatly arranged at the bottom of this stone-built chest.