True, there were no more staples, but three feet above the last was the lowest of the holes that had attracted his attention. He was able to examine it. A circular hole, seemingly drilled with some care; he put his finger in, but could not touch the end of it. And it appeared to be bored at a downward angle with the face of the wall. He felt that he must find out how long it was, though for the moment he did not see what good the information would be to him. Descending quickly, he found a long twig, and climbing up again, he inserted it into the hole. About a foot of the twig went into the wall.
"The hole is made to receive a movable step, or I'm a Dutchman," he said to himself. "It's long enough, and it's bored downward to prevent the step from slipping out. A mighty clever notion! The holes must have cost a deal of work, for the fellow who bored them must have been pretty awkwardly placed. I wonder if they were made by old Congleton, or after his time. Now what I want to know is, where are those steps?"
Once more he descended. The steps, wherever they were, were probably made of iron, and there must be about a dozen of them. Where were they? Were they carried backwards and forwards between the tower and the house of the person who used them? That seemed hardly likely. It was much more probable that they were hidden somewhere near at hand.
Jack hunted about the neighboring thickets. He might easily have overlooked small objects when searching for the ladder. But after what seemed a long time he still found no trace of them. Determined not to give up his quest, he was wondering how best he could make steps for himself when he caught sight of the summer-house, about two hundred yards away, where he had found the wounded lace-peddler.
"That's the place to rummage!" he thought.
He hastened to the summer-house. There were two rooms. Part of the roof had fallen in over one of them, and, encouraged by the marks of muddy boots about the doorway, Jack decided to search there first. The room was bare; he turned over the debris on the floor; nothing rewarded his efforts. But there was the chimney, a wide square recess in the wall; he would try that.
He almost shouted for joy when, far back in the opening, he came upon the object of his quest—a pile of rusty iron implements that seemed exactly suited for the purpose. They were stout rods about a foot long, with a loop at the end that might serve either as a hand-grip or a step. And the loop was at just such an angle with the rod as would correspond with the apertures in the walls.
There were a dozen in all. Gathering them, no light weight, into his arms, he returned to the tower, and with two of the rods climbed up by the staples and tried one in the first hole. It fitted exactly. He fixed the second, then descended for the others. Being a sailor he knew how to avoid unnecessary expenditure of time; he slung the rest of the fittings over his shoulder with his handkerchief, and carried them up with him once for all.
By their aid he mounted to the top of the tower, and found himself just below the trap-door. But it was not quite within reach. There was the hanging chain, however, coming through a hole in the floor; would that stand a tug? He made the attempt, intending to hoist himself up with one hand, and push with the other against the trap-door. But he found that when he exerted a little force the chain moved; it seemed hardly safe to trust to it. He was about to let it go when he noticed that the trap-door seemed to have risen slightly. Again he pulled at the chain, using more force. It gave to his tug, and as it descended he saw the trap-door open slowly upward. The chain at length stuck; the door was wide open, and a rough rope-ladder was hanging some ten feet below the hole.
Jack found that if he eased the pressure on the chain the trap-door tended to fall back. It was a simple matter to prevent this, for, just at his hand, there was a staple to which the chain could be hooked; it was evidently intended for that purpose. To swing himself on to the ladder was the simplest of feats, and in half a minute he had climbed through the open trap and stood in the turret.