Master Ambrose muttered something about a couple of lunatics and not having left his fireside to waste the night in indulging their fantasies; but all the same he followed Master Nathaniel, and the second secret door shut behind them with a sharp click.
"Phew!" said Master Nathaniel: "Phew!" puffed Master Ambrose, as they pounded laboriously along the passage behind their light-footed guide.
Then they began to ascend a flight of stairs, which seemed interminable, and finally fell forward with a lurch on to their knees, and again there was a click of something shutting behind them.
They groaned and cursed and rubbed their knees and demanded angrily to what unholy place she had been pleased to lead them.
But she clapped her hands gleefully, "Don't you know, pretty masters? Why, you're where the dead cocks roost! You've come back to your own snug cottage, Master Josiah Chanticleer. Take your lanthorn and look round you."
This Master Nathaniel proceeded to do, and slowly it dawned on him where they were.
"By the Golden Apples of the West, Ambrose!" he exclaimed, "if we're not in my own chapel!"
And, sure enough, the rays of the lanthorn revealed the shelves lined with porphyry coffins, the richly wrought marble ceiling, and the mosaic floor of the home of the dead Chanticleers.
"Toasted Cheese!" muttered Master Ambrose in amazement.
"It must have two doors, though I never knew it," said Master Nathaniel. "A secret door opening on to that hidden flight of steps. There are evidently people who know more about my chapel than I do myself," and suddenly he remembered how the other day he had found its door ajar.