Tom Barnum up to this moment had had little to say. Now, however, he came forward with a remark that caused the others to stare in amazement.
“There’s said to be a secret passage from the cellar to Starfish Cove or thereabouts,” he said. “I don’t know nothin’ about it, but that’s what folks say. They say as how old Pirate Brownell was afraid his sins would catch up with him some day, and hoped to escape by the passage when the avengers came. He couldn’t do it, however. He wasn’t quick enough.”
“A secret passage?” said Jack. “Come on. Last man closes the cellar door and locks it from the inside.”
Frank was the last to go. Before quitting the pantry, he stuffed the remaining sandwiches into his trousers pockets, seized on a tremendous butcher knife which was lying on the butler’s cabinet, and switched off the light. Then he locked the cellar stairway door, and descended to where the others awaited him at the foot.
They stood, as well as they could discern, in the midst of a huge cellar piled high with cases upon cases of bottles and barrels, too. 129
“Whew,” said Captain Folsom, “this looks like a bonded liquor warehouse. If we could only raid this place right now, it would be the richest haul in the history of the country since the nation went dry.”
“Is all this liquor?” asked Frank, incredulously.
“It is,” said Captain Folsom, pulling a bottle from the nearest case and examining the label critically. “And it’s the genuine stuff, too. Brought in from the Bahamas. English and Scotch whiskey.”
Louder shouts overhead and the noise of many feet descending stairs warned them the pursuit had drawn to the ground floor, and that they were in momentary danger of discovery.
“Those two doors won’t hold long,” said Jack, anxiously. “If we can’t find that tunnel entrance, we are out of luck. I think myself, we had better look for a door to the outside and try to escape that way.”