“They wouldn’t open to us,” said Jack, hurriedly, “so we fired a couple of shots through the door and then broke it down. Then we raced through the house. It’s a big place of two stories, with ten or a dozen rooms. In one of them we found Captain Cornell, bound and gagged. But no trace of the others, so Captain Murray and I went down to the cellar and found the entrance to this tunnel, without waiting to question Cornell. Come on, let’s hurry.”
And as the way being cleared by the disappearance of young Gordon, the last of the airmen to descend, the tunnel was now open to passage, Jack darted down the stairs. Frank followed at his heels. It was dark, only a faint glow, far ahead, showing where Captain Murray’s electric torch headlighted the procession. The air smelled musty. The walls were little more than a big man’s width apart, and the roof so low that the boys had to stoop in order to avoid bumping their heads as they proceeded. Ahead of them could be heard muttered exclamations as first one and then another, in his eagerness to make haste, ignored the necessary caution and suffered a bump.
“Bend down, and you’ll be all right,” advised Jack. “It’s a straight shoot to the other house, and the floor is smooth. Come on.”
Presently the two boys, who had closed up on the heels of the last of the group ahead, emerged into a cellar where they found the others waiting them.
“All here?” asked Captain Murray, flashing his spotlight from form to form. “All right, let’s go.”
But just as he was in the act of mounting an open stairway to the floor above, and had, in fact, placed a foot on the first step of the ascent, Jack halted him with a hand on his arm.
“Listen, Captain, what was that?”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ENEMY STRIKE.
In the sudden silence which fell on the group at Jack’s low-spoken cry, not a sound was to be heard.
Captain Murray shook off Jack’s grasp on his arm and mounted another step.