The Secret in the Hill by Bernard Capes — Read

I had forgotten all our late troubles in this wonderful encounter. Aaron's snake had swallowed the others. This peaked wintry little ghost out of the past, starved and frost-bitten and shabby as it looked, had yet a strange suggestion of vicious force about it which, inasmuch as it seemed sworn for good or evil to my service, comforted me unconsciously in the sense of fear and helplessness which had got me in grip. Somehow Rampick seemed less formidable, my feeling of bondage to an ugly responsibility less acute, in the knowledge of this new acrid ally.

But, beyond this, there was curiosity -- still-breathing, wide-eyed curiosity to know what enduring mystery yet held the footsteps of that ancient tale of The King _versus_ Joshua Pilbrow. I had learned something, had had my adventure tooth tickled with a taste of the truth. It had whetted my hunger for more, had tantalized me with that sharpest spur to youthful appetite -- the dream of hidden treasure. When would Joshua serve up the whole dish -- or would he ever? It seemed incredible that a man who had pursued such a secret, morose and self-contained, for six years, could yield it at last to a sentiment. Yet he had promised, and, though I sickened of the delay, I must not dare to risk making that eternal by over-precipitation.