Two pairs of dirty hands went up instantly.
"Come out of there or I'll shoot!" cried Hank.
Butch and Dick rose up and stood cowering before him. Hank raised his lantern and scrutinized their guilty faces with his one good eye.
"I know ye both!" he announced at length. "Now march down that pair o' stairs and wait for me at the bottom. No boltin', or I'll shoot!"
On reaching the foot of the stairs Hank stepped over to the front door, and lowering his shining weapon, stuck it into the keyhole and unlocked the door.
"Breakin' into a place what's locked, is burglary!" he told them crabbedly. "Did ye know that?"
The boys' answer, if indeed they made any, was swallowed up by the tumultuous booming of the church bell, which began at that moment with the unexpectedness of a thunderclap.
"What! Didn't I get all of ye?" cried Hank, starting for the stairs.
But there was no answer, for before Hank had taken two steps Butch and Dick were gone.
The same stroke of the bell that had brought Henry Morley out of his slumbers, had startled the two boys in the bell chamber almost out of their wits. For some moments they clung to each other in terror, not comprehending where they were or what was happening. That they were on the brink of destruction, neither one doubted. In such close quarters the vibration and reverberation were terrific. The sound was much more like the roar of a cannon than the joyful pealing of a church bell.