“Look here,” he said; “we’re losing time. Let’s go back, for I’m sure the way up is through that hole.”
“Impossible!” said Brace. “There must be a bold flight of steps.”
“No, there mustn’t, mister,” said Briscoe sharply. “This was an old strong place when the people who lived here were alive, and you may depend upon it that the way up was kept small for safety, so that it could easily be defended by a man or two with spears, or shut up with a heavy stone. I say we’ve passed the way up.”
“Let’s go back then,” said Sir Humphrey, smiling good-humouredly; and they all made their way back to the bottom of the hole, which had evidently been carefully cut.
Briscoe went to it at once; he gave his double gun to the nearest man to hold, and then, seizing one of the stones with which the horizontal oven-like hole had been filled, he shook it loose and dragged it out to stand in the attitude of lowering the heavy block to the ground.
“No,” said Brace; “let me.”
Brace uttered a warning cry.
“I see my nabs,” said Briscoe coolly, as a snake with menacing hiss came creeping rapidly out, raising its head as it glided down; and then its tail part writhed and turned about, for its power of doing mischief was at an end, the American having dropped the heavy stone upon its threatening crest and crushed it upon the stones below.
“That’s one,” said Briscoe coolly. “I shouldn’t wonder if his wife’s at home, and a small family as well. Here, you just fish out that next stone with the boat-hook.”
The man addressed stepped forward, thrust the implement into the opening, and drew out another stone, when, as the American had suggested, a second serpent came gliding out, to meet its death quickly and be tossed by one of the men over the parapet-like wall into the river.