“Has he brought a rope?” cried Nora.
George nearly always had a rope tied two or three times round his waist. He gaped at the two girls and Miss Dimmy, and then said, “Where’s Mike?”
“You haven’t been listening!” said Jack impatiently. “I was telling you all the way up.”
“Let me tell him,” said Dimmy, seeing that George really was thinking that everyone was quite mad. So she told him the whole story as shortly as possible. George nodded his head solemnly every now and again. He didn’t really seem astonished now that he knew everything, but his eyes gleamed when he heard that Dimmy wanted him to go up the chimney and tie his rope to the iron ring.
“I’d like to get Mike back all right,” said George, undoing the rope round his middle. It proved to be very long and very strong. He disappeared into the chimney with Jack’s torch. Jack tried to climb up after him, he was so impatient, but came down at once, his eyes and mouth full of soot kicked down by George’s enormous boots.
George found the iron ring in the little opening and knotted his rope in it. The end fell down the chimney to the hearth like a brown snake. George jumped down.
“Now we’ll all pull,” he said, with his slow, wide smile. So they all pulled - and the rope gave a little as the big stone above swung round and back, leaving just enough room for anyone to squeeze through.
Jack climbed up the chimney again and gave a shout as he saw the dark opening. “Oh, the secret passage is here all right! Come on, all of you!”
Poor Dimmy! She was really horrified at seeing everyone go up that dirty, sooty old chimney and getting as black as negroes - but even she went up too, just to see what kind of a secret passage it could be!
George had squeezed through the opening that was made when one big stone had swung out of its place. It had been cunningly built on a kind of swivel set in the next stone, and when weight was put on to the iron ring the stone swung round.