"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tell them there are all sorts of things in here—a chevaux de frize of chair-legs, and——"
"A shovel of what?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other side of the door.
"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get a candle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back the way we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorry for afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the others heard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were being climbed over.
This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise the barrels insisted on making when Dicky had collected some grown-ups and the barrels were being rolled away. During this thunder-like interval Denny and Oswald were all the time in the pitch dark. They had lighted their last match, and by its flickering gleam we saw a long, large mangle.
"It's like a double coffin," said Oswald, as the match went out. "You can take my arm if you like, Dentist."
The Dentist did—and then afterwards he said he only did it because he thought Oswald was frightened of the dark.
"It's only for a little while," said Oswald in the pauses of the barrel-thunder, "and I once read about two brothers confined for life in a cage so constructed that the unfortunate prisoners could neither sit, lie, nor stand in comfort. We can do all those things."
"Yes," said Denny; "but I'd rather keep on standing if it's the same to you, Oswald. I don't like spiders—not much, that is."
"You are right," said Oswald with affable gentleness; "and there might be toads perhaps in a vault like this—or serpents guarding the treasure like in the Cold Lairs. But of course they couldn't have cobras in England. They'd have to put up with vipers, I suppose."
Denny shivered, and Oswald could feel him stand first on one leg and then on the other.