“That fellow will have to do some tall explaining when he comes up with his crowd, for he won’t be able to show all that he may claim to have seen; that is, for a while, anyway.”
Henri was taking a positive dislike to the soldier who had proved such a bother at this critical period.
At the very end of the passage they were traversing arose a stained glass window of most exquisite design. On each side of the window the wainscoting was inlay work, model of ancient arts and crafts.
Henri used his hands on this surface as he would finger a checker or chess board. A large square swung open like a cupboard door and Henri motioned his comrades to pass through, and he, at their heels, closed the panel.
They stood in a narrow gallery, looking down into a chapel interior, most beautiful to behold. Hurrying along this gallery, the boys halted at a door heavily mounted with brass fittings. It was opened without effort and the boys found themselves at the head of another of those steep stairways, this one, however, running straight down—and a long way down.
It led to the crypt, or subterranean vault, under the chapel. Here the boys lighted their lanterns, at the suggestion of Henri. The latter shouldered a protruding stone in the wall of the cell and it gave way, disclosing of all the passages they had encountered in the house the most dismal and forbidding.
“Push in,” said Henri, “and we’re on the way to ‘Old Round Tower!’”
CHAPTER XXIV.
A RACE FOR LIFE.
“Gee! But isn’t this a jolly place, if you don’t care what you say.”