When Don let go of the edge of the flooring in the old house and dropped into space he had no idea of how far he would fall or how he would land. His teeth gripped together firmly, he felt himself shooting through a black void, to land suddenly on something wet and soft. The fall had not been long, and he was not even shaken up.
By feeling about him he soon came to the conclusion that he had landed on a heap of ashes, long ago soaked down by the dampness of the cellar. Don stood up and slowly moved his arms around in circles to gauge his distance, and then, finding that he was not near any wall or partition, began a careful advance. The place was pitch dark, and he had no idea what terrible holes or traps might exist in the loathsome place.
After traveling slowly in one direction he found that his hands encountered a wall, and with that as a guide he began a systematic journey around the place, seeking some sort of an opening. He had traveled around three of the four walls when his groping hands felt an iron door. He ran his hand up and down it from top to bottom and found that it was only five feet high and about three feet wide. The iron, much to his surprise, did not feel badly rusted. He wondered how that could be, and concluded that it had not been there for any length of time.
Continuing his explorations with his fingers he found a sliding bolt on the door which he had no difficulty in working. The bolt slipped back without protest, and the door opened inward, toward him. But when Don had opened the door, he felt rather disappointed. He had hoped to feel a rush of cold air, but there was none. Only a drier odor and one heavily tinctured with canvas. It was evidently good dry canvas, too, and that fact surprised him.
He stepped over the sill into the blackness and nearly pitched headlong. Only a good hold on the door frame saved him from going down, and he realized that this room was a few steps below the main cellar. So he lowered his foot until he felt the top step, and then found the second, and so on, until he had walked down four of them. Then he had made the level of the floor.
He felt a table to one side of him, and found that the top was covered with miscellaneous articles. Fortunately, he found a candle among the odds and ends which lay there.
“Now to find some matches,” he thought, and with increasing care he felt around the table until he came across a small box of safety matches. With an inward whoop of joy he scratched a match and lighted the candle. When the glow was steady he held the light above his head and looked around.
He was in a storage room that was quite large, and it was evident that some things were kept here with care. Several shelves ranged along the walls and these shelves seemed to be loaded with articles, all of which were covered with canvas. Don approached a bottom shelf and lifted a piece of canvas.
What he saw made his eyes bulge out. Quickly he lifted other coverings and examined the articles under them. In each case the same conviction was forced upon him.
“Jeepers!” he breathed. “These fellows are the marine bandits all right!”