CHAPTER XXXIV.
WHAT THE CYPHER DID FOR THEM—THE END OF THE PASSAGE—NEARLY
SAVED—BACK AGAIN—LOST—THE DEAD-HOUSE ON THE TERRACE.
Four Stones up.
Two across.
"Do you understand it now, Harry?"
The latter scratched his head and looked about.
"I understand it well enough," he replied; "but there is one difficulty."
"What?"
"A tool."
"Let us try with our hands first," said Jack.
And so saying, he set to work himself to try as he suggested.
"One, two, three, four, and two up. Good! Now, Harry, lend a hand here. Come."
Harry Girdwood dropped on one knee beside his companion and together they pressed the stone indicated in the singular cypher.
For a moment they felt no effect, but after a minute's effort they found that they had made an impression.
The discovery set them all aglow.
"Once more."
"Harder yet."
"Of course; only mind, Jack, no jerking."
"All right"
"We must work without making any noise; a jerk might bring down one of the stones with a clatter, which would alarm the guards.
"Caution is our watchword."
Soon they had the satisfaction of seeing the stone revolve and drop out into their arms.
Then they saw that beyond the hole thus left there was an open space.
It was pitch dark.
Now, the hole in the wall was only just big enough for one of them to squeeze through, and Harry Girdwood pushed in eagerly, and then he perceived that beyond was a sort of tunnel on a small scale, with a roughly-hewn flight of steps at the end of it.
"I can see some steps," said he.
"Go on," said Jack, with feverish eagerness.
"I will; but you go to the door, Jack, and listen."
Jack stood eagerly watching at the dungeon door.
Young Jack was full of eagerness.
Harry had disappeared, and he could not see or hear him.
"All right."
The answer came in a hollow, echoing sound, which indicated that Harry Girdwood had made some considerable progress.
This increased his eagerness greatly.
* * * * *
"Harry."
No answer.
He was too far for young Jack's voice to reach him.
Quitting his post at the door, young Jack ran back to the hole in the wall, and called out eagerly to his exploring comrade—
"Harry, Harry!"
"Hullo!"
"Come back, quick! I can hear someone coming."
"The deuce you can."
Back he scrambled as fast as the narrow space would allow of, and he was soon in the cell again.
"What is it?"
"I heard the bell go and the iron door along the passage outside. Sebastian is coming."
"Confound it! Look what a precious mess."
The displacing of the stone had left traces of the work.
But having seen their danger, they were prepared to provide against it.
Quick as thought they swept up the dirt, mortar, and rubbish, and threw it into the hole.
Then, joining hands, they raised the stone and lifted it into its place.
At that moment the key turned in the massive and half rusty lock.
Sebastian entered the cell, tray in hand.
He had not the faintest suspicion that any thing was wrong.
"Will you leave the tray, Sebastian?"
"Why?"
"For us to work up our appetites; we have none to speak of now."
"Very good," returned the man; "there can be no harm in that."
"Of course not."
Sebastian then left the room.
"Thank goodness he's gone!" said young Jack, who was all impatience to see what Harry was to do next.
Harry Girdwood watched until the door was fairly closed, and then turned again to the hole in the wall.
"Come along. Follow me, Jack."
"Trot on," said young Harkaway. "I'm after you."
They both scrambled through the hole, and when they were upon the other side, they replaced the stone.
And this done, the cell wore its original aspect.
Their way now lay down a rugged flight of steps, roughly cut in the solid earth.
The greatest care was necessary to avoid stumbling.
At length Harry Girdwood came to a standstill.
"Jack," he said, in a whisper,
"Here."
"Keep close now."
"Right."
"Nearer. Lend me a hand here. That's it. Now help me to raise the stone here."
"Are you sure you are right?"
"Certain."
"Why?"
"This is exactly the position of the stone we have to lift away that old Dougherty describes in his plan."
Young Jack said no more, but lent his aid, and together they shifted the stone from its place.
Then daylight peeped into their dark hiding-place.
There was something leaning against the opening.
They pushed it aside, and stepping over a pile of sacks, found themselves in a covered shed overlooking the sea.
A place of curious aspect, with no sign of life in it
All was as still and gloomy-looking as if it were a huge mausoleum.
"I know what this place is," said Harry Girdwood.
"What?"
"It must be the dead-house on the terrace that I see noted down in old Dougherty's plans."
* * * * *
While they were in the dead-house upon the terrace, a stirring scene was being enacted in the cell in the tower above, which they had only lately vacated.
In fact, Jack Harkaway the elder had only just entered the cell with Sebastian as they found themselves upon the terrace.
"Where are we now?"
There were several ugly-looking long boxes, whose shape was uniform and suggestive, standing upon tressels.
Besides these, there were no objects in the room or shed beyond a few badly-filled sacks which rested against the wall.
They looked anxiously about them.
Nearly facing the place where they had made their entrance was a door, and this they tried without a moment's loss of time.
Fast.
Immovable.
"The window, then," said Harry Girdwood.
Back they ran on tip-toe to the window, and pushing open the casement, they looked out.
The sea.
Between thirty and forty feet below, and lashing the very base of the prison.
They turned to each other simultaneously.
"Ugh!"
"No chance here."
"This is a funny go."
"Well, Jack," said Harry, ruefully, "I'm glad you find it funny; for my part, I don't see the joke."
"Your friend, old Dougherty, did, no doubt."
"Don't be hard on poor old Dougherty," said Harry, laughingly. "It is very likely that his plan is complete, if we could only find it out."
"Where is it?"
"In our cell," said Harry; "I'll go back and get it."
And putting aside the sack, he pressed his way into the opening.
Young Jack glanced around him at the boxes on the tressels.
An unpleasant feeling stole over him.
He did not relish being left alone with the dead.
He felt convinced that those ugly boxes did contain the bodies of dead prisoners.
"I'm with you, Harry," he said.
After him he pressed, and up the long, narrow tunnel made by old Dougherty they passed.
Sometimes on all fours; sometimes standing nearly upright.
"A few steps more, and we are there," said Harry.
"Hah!"
"What now?"
"Listen!"
"I can hear voices," said Harry, in a whisper. "This is the stone which is all we have to displace to get back to the cell."
"Then the voices are there?"
"Yes."
"By jingo!" exclaimed young Jack, "then they must have discovered our absence already."
"Of course."
"How I should like to yell out something! Wouldn't it startle them just a little?"
"Don't be foolish, Jack," said his companion, uneasily. "You would ruin us."
"They'd never discover where we were. Shall I startle them?"
"No. Our only chance of safety depends upon keeping snug."
"All right."
They could hear noisy tones of anger, which denoted that something unusual had occurred.
"There are several people there," said Harry, listening intently at the stone.
"By Jove! how I should like to give them a cheer."
"Keep quiet," exclaimed Harry. "You will ruin us."
But, by a mere chance, he was wrong there.
Had young Jack really indulged in his propensity of devilment on this occasion, it would have saved them many hours of mental anguish and of bodily suffering, for the angry words uttered in the cell but lately tenanted by the two boys were spoken by Jack Harkaway the elder?
Yes.
Cruel fate was playing them a sad trick.
They were now actually fleeing from their father and protector.
The voice raised in anger, and whose echo came but feebly to them in their hiding-place, was his.
Harkaway's.
And thus were these loving hearts parted by a few inches of stone wall.
The boys, on the one hand, taking the confused sounds for the murmur of their enemy's voice.
And at that very moment Harkaway was nearly distracted to have all his hopes dashed rudely to the ground.
And in his anger, two lives were sorely endangered.
Sebastian and Theodora were both menaced—aye, both.
Harkaway could only believe that they had been fooling him, and that he had been trapped there with a view to further treachery.
His rage, in consequence, knew no bounds.
But we must now follow the two brave boys.
"Back we go, or we shall be captured," said Harry Girdwood.
Young Jack led the way back as fast as the narrow space would permit.
And soon they were in the dead-house again, and groping about here, they presently came upon a cupboard in which they discovered a number of tools.
"Luck at last," ejaculated Harry.
"Here, let's make sure of these two knives," said young Jack.
They were long-bladed weapons, something similar in shape to the American bowie.
They took one each and placed them in their waist belts.
They little thought then of the singular yet immense service these were to be to them.
Now barely were these knives secreted when they were startled by the sound of heavy foot-falls upon the stone-paved passage beyond the dead-house door.
"What shall we do now?"
Young Jack stepped up to the door, and listened intently for awhile.
"There are only two people," he said to his comrade, Harry, in a whisper.
"Only two. Well, that's quite enough, I should say."
"Let us hide behind the door," said young Jack, eagerly, "and then fall upon them, and make a dash for liberty."
The steps drew nearer and nearer.
"Let us hide here," said Harry, pushing the lid off one of the long coffins or shells.
But even as he did so, both boys started back with looks of horror.
And why?
The removal of the coffin lid revealed a ghastly corpse, the face showing the last agonies which the dead man had suffered, and they, to judge by the distorted face and twisted mouth, must have been horrible indeed.
They pushed back the lid.
"Ugh!"
"Horrible, horrible!" gasped young Jack. The footsteps sounded nearer.
They were coming to this place, whoever it was.
The boys looked about them in despair.
At the last moment young Jack's eye lighted upon an empty sack upon the ground, lying beside the full ones to which we have previously alluded.
"Let's get in that."
"Good."
Harry Girdwood jumped at the proposition.
Now the sacks were very large, and made of coarse canvas, thick enough to avoid falling into folds, which would reveal the contents to any one at a glance.
So, quick as thought, young Jack held it open while Harry got in, and then Harry, holding up the sides of it with both hands, stood erect while young Jack joined him.
"This is a novel way of jumping in sack," said the irrepressible Jack.
"Hush!"
"They come."
A key was heard grating in the rusty lock, and as the boys inclined against the other sacks so as to look as much like one of the pile as possible, the heavy door ground suddenly ajar, and two ugly-looking, black-visaged men entered the shed.