“But I can’t!” groaned Tom. “I’m afraid! I always was afraid in this old house. Uncle said there were ghosts in the cellar! I’ll never get over my dread of the place—never! What shall we do?”
“Keep poking at everything you see,” commanded Clay, annoyed at the boy’s attitude. “There must be something to push, or something to pull. We are certain to find it if we keep on looking. We never came to this country to be drowned like this! Bet your life we never did!”
“But the water is getting deeper every minute,” wailed Tom. “Oh, I can fight out in the open, and like it, too, but I’m terrified in the dark and in places where strength doesn’t count!”
“Courage always counts!” Clay answered. “You just keep on looking for that spring, or that lever, or whatever it is that opens the door!”
The lads did keep on looking, but the water rose higher and higher. They could now hear voices outside, though they came dully to their ears, and now and then a crash came which told of falling timbers.
Clay realized that the foundations of the house were falling in more places than one, and that the sills and studding were giving way, but he did not care to inform Tom of this new peril. He knew that the boy was not lacking in courage, as courage is usually classed, but he also knew he possessed the same natural antipathy to darkness that the house cat possesses for water. Probably because of prenatal influences, the boy was a coward at the present time, though he tried hard not to show just how hopeless, and frightened, and despairing he was.
“There’s a crowd gathering outside,” Clay encouraged, “and they’ll find some way to get us out. But we’ve got to keep on looking for the means to open this door. Why, boy, just look here, will you?”
Clay was pulling at a half-concealed lever which he had found pressed into a niche in the stone wall as he spoke. It came out slowly and a stone above it moved as he drew it away from its hiding-place “I thought I had it!” he cried. “It moves something, but not the door! Queer old trap, this! Look at it!”
As the lever came out a stone in the wall started from above and dropped down on hinges, revealing an opening about a foot in size.
The boy held his light to the opening for a moment and then drew out a thick package of papers. One end of the wrapper had been torn off, and Clay drew a paper out and looked at the lettering on the back of the fold. Then he thrust the papers into an inside pocket and looked Tom in the face, his own eyes staring with amazement.