"Oh, you dears, how did you know that we were lost?"
Jozef and Janik were surprised. They had had no idea that the girls were in the cellar. They had gone into Janik's storeroom for some raw sour-kraut, and Janik had related how his big brother had ventured quite a distance into one of the passage-ways the week before. "Let's go, too," had suggested Jozef. Both boys had run home for some lanterns, never dreaming that they should meet the girls.
"Huh," grunted Jozef, after Ruzena's embrace, not yet comprehending. And when the boys did comprehend, well—it was rather nice to be treated like heroes! They listened to the girls, but although they glanced sideways now and then at each other, offered no explanations.
Then Jozef and Janik quarreled and while waiting to make up, Jozef had an inspiration.
"The girls won't try this again," he communed with himself, "and sometime I'll give Janik a scare by going through our passage to his. Perhaps I'd better store a little food in it, for I might ask some of the other boys to come in with me, and it'd be nicer to have some food and play we're those old Hussites."
So, little by little, Jozef smuggled in food of all kinds; some sugar, more wheat than several boys could eat, sunflower and pumpkin seeds,—the latter considered a particular delicacy,—a small bag of raisins and nuts, a handful of dried mixed fruit in a preserve jar, and various other things.