I made the suggestion, and at once we commenced to suit the action to the word, first digging a big hole some eight feet deep and six across, and then driving at right angles beneath the root.
We had been at work over an hour, slowly excavating beneath the base of the root, when of a sudden my pick struck wood. My companions with their shovels quickly cleared away the earth, when there became disclosed to us a sodden, half rotten plank set up on end. The discovery showed that we had come upon something unusual, especially as the spade worked by Usher revealed a few moments later two other boards placed so closely in a line with the first that they seemed joined together.
Twenty minutes afterwards we found five thick planks, each half a foot wide, placed together in a straight line, as though it were the side of a square subterranean chamber that had been excavated and boarded up so as to prevent the earth from falling in.
All three of us were almost beside ourselves with impatience to break down that wooden barrier. I took the crowbar and inserted its curved end between two of the stout elm planks in an endeavour to break out one of them. The attempt was, however, futile.
Indeed, it took us another half-hour before we had sufficiently excavated the earth, top and bottom, to allow us to make a satisfactory attempt. At last, however, I again placed the crowbar beneath the blackened, sodden wood, and we all three jumped against it with all our might. It did not yield at first, but, working by slow degrees, we gradually loosened it, and then of a sudden the heavy bolts or fastenings within gave way with a loud crack and the plank was wrenched out, disclosing a dark cavity beyond.
Usher struck a match and held it within, but its feeble light revealed nothing. We wondered if, after all, someone had been before us, ages ago perhaps, for the chamber seemed hollow and empty.
Without loss of time we broke out three other planks from the side of the wooden wall, and then, lighting a candle, I stooped and entered the place, eager to ascertain the truth.
The moment I stepped within a loud cry involuntarily escaped my lips, for my gladdened eyes fell upon some dark objects which lay piled one upon the other in the centre of the small, close-smelling place.