"I think so, too," said Malipieri. "Throw away that iron, Masin. He
shall show himself, at all events, and if we like his face we can talk
to him here."
Masin dropped the drill with a clang. Toto's hairy hand appeared,
grasping the golden wrist of the statue, as he raised himself to
approach the hole.
"He is a mason, as he says," said Masin, catching sight of the rough
fingers.
"Did you take me for a coachman?" enquired Toto, thrusting his shaggy
head forward cautiously, and looking up through the aperture.
"Before you come up here," Malipieri answered, "tell me how you got
in."
"You seem to know so much about the overflow shaft that I should think
you might have guessed. If you do not believe that I came that way,
look at my clothes!"
He now crawled upon the body of the statue, and Malipieri saw that he
was covered with half-dried mud and ooze.
"You got through some old drain, I suppose, and found your way up."
"It seems so," answered Toto, shaking his shoulders, as if he were
stiff.
"Are you going to let him go free, sir?" asked Masin, standing ready.
"If you do, he will be down the shaft, before you can catch him. These
men know their way underground like moles."
"Moles, yourselves!" answered Toto in a growl, putting his head up
above the level of the vault.
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