Giovanni would come in some morning and declare that he could trust no one but Zorzi to collect certain sums of money in the city, and he would take care that the matter should keep him absent several hours.

That would be ample time in which to try the flagstones with a hammer and to turn over the right one.

Zorzi had convinced himself that it gave a hollow sound when he tapped it and that Giovanni could find it easily enough.
It was therefore folly to leave the box in its present place any longer, and he cast about in his mind for some safer spot in which to hide it.
In the meantime, fearing lest Giovanni might think of sending him out at any moment, he waited till Pasquale had brought him water in the morning, and then raised the stone, as he had done before, took the box out of the earth and hid it in the cool end of the annealing oven, while he replaced the slab.

The effort it cost him to move the latter told him plainly enough that his injury had weakened him almost as an illness might have done, but he succeeded in getting the stone into its bed at last.

He tapped it with the end of his crutch as he knelt on the floor, and the sound it gave was even more hollow than before.