“It’s me first this time,” declared Henri. “I’m on the way home, and it’s the duty of this son of my mother to open the door for our guests.” [91]
“You bluffer, you,” said Billy, “what you want is to take the first risk of going into that hole. I know you.”
Henri did not stop to argue. He cat-footed it down the stone steps, holding his lantern in front of him at arm’s length.
Billy came next, and Reddy last. The last boy, however, was not the least when it came to thinking. He thought that it would be a good idea to fix the oak cover so that he could support it with his hands and let it drop again over the opening when the three should have gone underground.
It would give a chance prowler no opportunity to find the mouth of the tunnel, and either follow them or set up an alarm that would result in the boys being caught like rats in a trap.
So Reddy wisely closed the way behind them, and thus insured that there would be no disturbance from the rear.
The tunnel route was not an inviting one. The rounded roof in many places had sagged and closed in to such an extent as to almost choke the passage, and great care had to be taken by the boys so as not to bring a mass of stonework and earth down upon their heads. This dangerous condition was chiefly where the tunnel ran through the low ground, for when the passageway began to ascend the boys were enabled to go much faster and in greater safety.
[92]
But in the tunnel entire the air was stifling and from the cracks in the slimy walls came hideous crawling things.
It was fully an hour before the boys had any assurance that the tunnel really did have an end.
This assurance was a heavily grated door set in solid masonry.
“Now we are done,” was Billy’s despairing prediction.
“Never say quit; that isn’t like you.”
It was seldom that Henri assumed the r?le of bracer-up to Billy. It had been generally the other way, but Billy was willing to acknowledge that he was not much of a cave man. He liked the open too well.
There were faint streaks of daylight threading through the grated spaces of the door. That was something for which to be thankful.
Reddy was giving the rusty grating a lively shake when with a clang something hit the stone floor of the tunnel.
It was a key of the kind that locksmiths used to make by the pound.
The key had been suspended from a hook at the side of the door, and Reddy’s vigorous attack on the grating had caused it to fall.
Henri pushed the key into the ponderous lock and with a strong-arm ............