“No, but you might have wandered about in these passageways until you were tired out. Or you might have fallen from that door. Look out, but hold close to the door,” said Nathan.
Faith came to the doorway and found herself looking straight down the face of a high cliff to the blue waters of the lake. Lifting her eyes she could look across and see the distant wooded hills of the Green Mountains, and could hear the “Chiming Waters” of the falls.
“It’s lovely. But what do they have a door here for?” Faith asked.
And then Nathan explained what forts were for. That a door like that gave the soldiers who held the fort a chance to look up and down the lake in order to see the approach of an enemy by water. “And gives them a chance to scramble down the cliff and get away if the enemy captures the fort from the other side.” Then he showed Faith the two big cannon that commanded the lake and any approach by the cliff.
“But come on. I must take you home,” he declared, moving as if to close the door.
“Could we get out any other way than by going back through that passage?” asked Faith, who thought that she never wanted to see the two sisters again, and now feared they might be waiting for her.
“Certainly we could. That is, if you are a good climber,” replied Nathan. “I’ll tell you something, that is, if you’ll never tell,” he added.
“I won’t,” Faith declared earnestly.
“Well, I can go down that cliff and up, too, just as easily as I can walk along that passage. And the soldiers don’t pay much attention to this part of the fort. There’s a sentry at the other end of the passage, but he doesn’t mind how I get in and out. If you’ll do just as I say I’ll take you down the cliff. My boat is hidden down by Willow Point, and I’ll paddle you alongshore. ’Twill be easier than walking. That is, if you’re not afraid,” concluded Nathan.
“No, I’m not afraid,” said Faith, thinking to herself that here was another secret, and almost wishing that she had not agreed to listen to it.