as I had got down earlier in the day. So on that February night John
Trenchard found himself standing in the heap of loose fallen mould at the
bottom of the hole, with a mixture of courage and cowardice in his heart,
but overruling all a great desire to get at Blackbeard's diamond.

Out came tinder-box and candle, and I was glad indeed when the light
burned up bright enough to show that no one, at any rate, was standing by
my side. But then there was the passage, and who could say what might be
lurking there? Yet I did not falter, but set out on this adventurous
journey, walking very slowly indeed--but that was from fear of
pitfalls--and nerving myself with the thought of the great diamond which
surely would be found at the end of the passage. What should I not be
able to do with such wealth? I would buy a nag for Mr. Glennie, a new
boat for Ratsey, and a silk gown for Aunt Jane, in spite of her being so
hard with me as on this night. And thus I would make myself the greatest
man in Moonfleet, richer even than Mr. Maskew, and build a stone house in
the sea-meadows with a good prospect of the sea, and marry Grace Maskew
and live happily, and fish. I walked on down the passage, reaching out
the candle as far as might be in front of me, and whistling to keep
myself company, yet saw neither Blackbeard nor anyone else. All the way
there were footprints on the floor, and the roof was black as with smoke
of torches, and this made me fear lest some of those who had been there
before might have made away with the diamond. Now, though I have spoken
of this journey down the passage as though it were a mile long, and
though it verily seemed so to me that night, yet I afterwards found it
was not more than twenty yards or thereabouts; and then I came upon a
stone wall which had once blocked the road, but was now broken through so
as to make a ragged doorway into a chamber beyond. There I stood on the
rough sill of the door, holding my breath and reaching out my candle
arm's-length into the darkness, to see what sort of a place this was