"I am going back," I answered, still fumbling for the holt Duchaine had drawn.
"No! We are safe inside. It is a secret room. My father made it in the first days of his sojourn here in case he was pursued, and none but Pierre and he know the secret. Ah, come, monsieur—come!"
She clung to me desperately, and there was an intensity of entreaty in her voice.
I hesitated. There was no sound in the room without, and I believed that the two ruffianly followers were ignorant of what had happened, and had not dared to return after being driven away.
But I meant to kill Leroux, and still felt for the bolt.
As I fumbled there the door splintered suddenly, and Jacqueline cried out. Through the hole I saw the oil-lamp shining in the outer room.
The door splintered again. All at once I realized that Leroux was firing his revolver at the panels. It was fortunate that we both stood at one side, where the latch was.
Then I yielded reluctantly to Jacqueline's soft violence. I followed her through the dark chamber, under an archway of stone, and through a winding passage in the rock. Pierre's candle flickered before us, and in another moment we had squeezed through a narrow opening into a chamber in the cliff.
On the ground were five or six large stones, and Pierre began to fit them into the aperture through which we had passed. In a minute the place was completely sealed, and we four stood and looked breathlessly at one another within what might have been a cenotaph.
Not the slightest sound came from without.