"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Bill," said Mr. Jope sternly.
"They're anticks, that's what they are."
Mr. Adams drew a long breath.
"I shouldn' wonder," he said.
"Turnin' 'em wi' their faces to the wall 'd look too marked," mused Mr. Jope. "But a few tex o' Scripture along the walls might ease things down a bit."
"Wot about the hold?" Mr. Adams suggested.
"The cellar, you mean. Let's have a look."
They passed through the hall; thence down a stone stairway into an ample vaulted kitchen, and thence along a slate-flagged corridor flanked by sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices. The two seamen searched the floors of all in hope of finding a cellar trap or hatchway, and Mr. Adams was still searching when Mr. Jope called to him from the end of the corridor:
"Here we are!"
He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral crypt, leading down to a stone archway. The archway was closed by an iron-studded door.