ted before. You had better go up
to Maria, Jose, and get her to bathe your wrist with cold water, and
put on a bandage."

"Now, senor, what shall we do next?"

"Well, now that we know that its weight cannot be anything very great,
and that certainly to some extent it can be moved, we will try
hammering again at that end. Do you stand three or four feet beyond it,
so as to be able to bring your sledge down with all your strength just
on the lower corner. I will face you and strike six or eight inches
above where you hit. Of course we must both bring our hammers down at
the same instant. We shall be able to do that after two or three
trials. Stand at the other end of the stone, Bertie, and tell us if it
moves at all."

After one or two attempts the two men got to swing their hammers so as
to strike precisely at the same moment, and when half a dozen blows had
fallen, Bertie said: "It comes out a little at each blow. It is not
much, but it comes."

Three or four minutes later he reported, "It is an inch and a half out
now, and there is room to get the end of a crowbar in here."

"That is curious," Harry said as he lowered his sledgehammer, and,
taking up the candle, examined the end where he had been striking.

"This is sunk about the same distance, Bertie. The stone must work
somehow on a pivot."

They now put a crowbar into the end Bertie had been watching, and all
three threw their weight on the lever. Slowly the stone yielded to the
pressure, and moved farther and farther out. It was pushed open until
the crowbar could act no longer as a lever, but they could now get a
hold of the inside edge. It was only very slowly and with repeated
efforts that they could turn the stone round, and at last it stood
fairly at right angles to the wall, dividing the opening into equal
parts about two feet four each.

"There is a pivot under it; that is quite evident. It may be a copper
ball in the stone below, or it may be that a knob of the upper stone
projects into a hole in the lower. However, it does not matter how it
works. 