Chapter 11 A STRANGE DISCOVERY
The children were astonished to see so many gleaming statues, standing¹ in the darkness of the wood.
They wandered round them, and then came to a large shed. They peeped inside.
'Look here!' said Dick, excited. 'Long, deep boxes, strong as iron! And see what's in these two!'
They all came to look. In the first, packed in what looked like sawdust, was a beautifully carvedstatue of a boy. The next box seemed to be entirely² full of sawdust, and Anne had to scrape quite a lotaway to see if anything was packed there too.
'It's a little stone angel!' she said, scraping sawdust from a quaint³ little face, a small crown and thetips of small wings. 'Lovely! Why are these statues being packed away like this?'
'Use your brain!' said Dick. 'It's obvious that they're works of art - and are probably very old.
They're being packed to send away in some boat or ship - to be transported somewhere where they'llfetch a lot of money - America, probably!'
'Did they come from the old castle, do you think?' asked George. 'It's quite near. I expect this shedbelongs to it. But how was it that the police didn't find them in the castle when they searched? Theymust have gone there, and looked into every corner! And what about the statues in the wood outside -why haven't they been packed away?'
'Too big, probably,' said Julian. 'And too heavy. A small boat wouldn't be strong enough to take greatthings like that. But those little statues are quite perfect for transporting - they don't weigh as much asthe big ones - and they aren't marked by the weather, through standing in rain, sun and snow! Not amark on them!'
'You're right,' said Anne. 'I noticed that those big ones outside were green here and there, and somehad bits knocked off them. I wish we could get inside the castle and see the things there!'
'The man at the golf-club, the one we took those lost balls to - he said something about statues aswhite as snow, standing in this wood - do you remember?' said Dick.
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'Yes. They must have stood there for some time,' said Julian. 'I don't feel they can be very valuable,else they would be put carefully indoors, under cover. But these little beauties - I guess they're wortha lot of money!'
'Who do you suppose packed them in here?' said Anne.
'Maybe those big men we saw,' said Julian. 'Even small statues like these need someone very strongindeed to carry them here to this shed, and pack them like this. Then, of course, they would have tobe carried to some boat - or ship - probably to a boat first, and then rowed out to a waiting ship. But Idon't think those guards are the men behind all this - someone with great knowledge of old thingsmust be the ringleader. He probably heard the old legend of the island, came to have a look round,and made quite a lot of interesting discoveries!'

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