At that moment, Tom Barnum’s voice, low but tense and thrilling with excitement, came out of the darkness ahead.
“Mister Jack, Mister Jack, come here. Here where ye see my light.”
The others had not missed Tom before. But immediately on reaching the cellar, he had gone 130 exploring by the light of the matches he had found in his pockets, without troubling Jack for the flashlight.
Hurriedly, the others now made their way to where a dim gleam of light which went out before they reached it only to be succeeded by another, showed where Tom was awaiting them. When they reached his side, they found him crouched at the foot of a wall, pushing and straining at a big barrel.
“Lend a hand,” he panted. “The entrance is back here.”
Almost over their heads on the floor above, an attack was made at this moment on the door connecting living room and pantry. They could hear the shouts to surrender, to unlock the door, and the blows being rained upon the barrier.
“Push. It’s a-movin’.”
The barrel did move aside sufficiently to admit of a man getting between it and the wall, and in the rays of the flashlight appeared a small, door-like opening in the stone.
“In with ye, every one,” said Tom. “I’ll pile a couple o’ these cases on top of each other to cover up the entrance, an’ climb over it.”
The door above, the first of the two impeding pursuit, fell with a splintering crash. There was a 131 shout of triumph, giving way to surprise when the pantry was found untenanted. Captain Folsom and the boys without more delay crawled into the opening. They could hear Tom piling cases over the entrance, then a thud as, having climbed his barricade, he dropped to the cellar floor on the inside. Then he joined them.