“You’re hearing things, my boy. I didn’t hear a sound. Ah!”
The exclamation was jerked from him as, distinct, yet faint, there came a distant thud. It might have been the slamming of a door, or the dropping of some heavy object. What it was, Captain Murray did not wait to hear, but with a cry of “Come, come on, fellows,” he started to bound up the cellar steps, the bullseye of light from his torch showing a closed door at their head.
After him leaped the others, crowding the narrow stairway. But as Captain Murray reached the door and grasped the handle, he came to an abrupt halt. The door was locked. And as the others piled up behind him, there came to their ears the sharp crack of revolver shots, muffled by distance and intervening walls and floors, from somewhere in the body of the house above them.
“Something funny here,” muttered Captain Murray. “We left this door open.”
But in the same breath he was thrust aside and against the stone wall on his left, while a bulky form brushed by him on the right, along the unrailed edge of the stairway, and went crashing, shoulder first, into the locked door ahead. The door reeled under the impact, but still held. However, it was made of flimsy material and once more the big fellow who had taken the initiative crashed into it. The door flew outward, and the human battering ram with it, landing on hands and knees.
It was Bob. He jumped to his feet as first Captain Murray and then the others started forward over the breach which he had made.
“Which way?” he cried.
The spatter of revolver shots, heard when they had been crowded together on the stairway, had ceased. The house was silent about them. They looked at each other, nonplussed. Then Jack raising his voice shouted:
“Dad, Dad, where are you?”
A moment. Then from overhead came Mr. Hampton’s voice in reply: