I wonder how people got down to them."
"We'll have to study the map a bit more and see," said George.
"It all looks rather muddled to us at present— but once we take the map over to the castle and study it there, we may be able to make out how to get down to the hidden dungeons.
Ooooh!
I don't expect any children ever had such an adventure as this."
Julian put the traced map carefully into his jeans pocket.
He didn't mean it to leave him. It was very precious.
Then he put the real map back into the box and looked towards the house.
"What about putting it back now?" he said.
"Maybe your father is still asleep, George."
But he wasn't.
He was awake.
Luckily he hadn't missed the box!
He came into the dining-room to have tea with the family, and Julian took his chance.
He muttered an excuse, slipped away from the table, and replaced the box on the table behind his uncle's chair!
He winked at the others when he came back.
They felt relieved.
They were all scared of Uncle Quentin, and were not at all anxious to be in his bad books.
Anne didn't say one word during the whole of the meal.
She was so terribly afraid she might give something away, either about Tim or the box.
The others spoke very little too.
While they were at tea the telephone rang and Aunt Fanny went to answer it.
She soon came back.
"It's for you, Quentin," she said.
"Apparently the old wreck has caused quite a lot of excitement, and there are men from a London paper who want to ask you questions about it."
"Tell them I'll see them at six," said Uncle Quentin.
The children looked at one another in alarm.
They hoped that their uncle wouldn't show the box to the newspapermen.
Then the secret of the hidden gold might come out!
"What a mercy we took a tracing of the map!" said Julian, after tea.
"But I'm jolly sorry now we left the real map in the box.
Someone else may guess our secret!"
Chapter Ten AN ASTONISHING OFFER
THE next morning the papers were full of the extraordinary way in which the old wreck had been thrown up out of the sea.
The newspaper men had got out of the children's uncle the tale of the wreck and the lost gold, and some of them even managed to land on Kirrin Island and take pictures of the old ruined castle.
George was furious.
"It's my castle!" she stormed to her mother.
"It's my island.
You said it could be mine.
You did, you did!"
"I know, George dear," said her mother.
"But you really must be sensible. It can't hurt the island to be landed on, and it can't hurt the castle to be photographed."
"But I don't want it to be," said George, her face dark and sulky.
"It's mine. And the wreck is mine.
You said so."
"Well, I didn't know it was going to be thrown up like that," said her mother.
"Do be sensible, George.
What can it possibly matter if people go to look at the wreck?
You can't stop them."
George couldn't stop them, but that didn't make her any the less angry about it.