Aline put down the book and went to the ambry and opened the door. The single shelf came forward without difficulty. “Have you found anything?” Audry asked eagerly.
“Yes,” she replied, “but I cannot move it; it is too stiff.”
“Let me have a try,” and Audry stepped forward and put her fingers into the space. “My hands are stronger than yours,” she said. “Ah, that is it!” she exclaimed, as she felt the lever move to one side, and by working it backwards and forwards she soon made it quite loose.
The Moving Plank and the Way to the Secret Room.
Aline meanwhile had already put her little foot on the third board, at the end just against the wall, and felt it yield. The other end was now sufficiently raised to allow of the fingers being passed underneath. She lifted it up and found that it was simply attached to a bar about six inches from the wall-end. They both peeped into the opening disclosed and felt round it. Aline was the first to find the bolt and pulled it forward. But alas no panel moved. Audry looked ready to weep, but Aline exclaimed, “Oh, it must be all right as we have got so far; let us feel the panels and try and force them down. This is the one above the bolt,” and she put her fingers on it to try and make it slide down. She had no sooner spoken than the panel moved an inch and, slipping her hand inside, she pressed it down to the bottom. The panel tended to rise again when she let go, as the bottom rested on the arm of a weighted lever. It looked very gloomy inside but the children were determined to go on. They then found that there was just comfortable room for them to go backwards down the stairs and that there would have been room even for a big man to manage it without much difficulty. There were many cobwebs and once or twice their light threatened to go out; but at last they reached the bottom, crawling on hands and knees the whole way. There they found a long narrow passage, in the thickness of the wall, of immense length. They went along this for a great distance and then began to get frightened.
“Where ever can we have got to?” Audry said at length.
“It is quite clear that we are wrong,” said Aline, “as the library, we know, is just at the bottom of the newel-stair and the book said that the secret room was just underneath the library. We must go back.”
“What if we go wrong again and lose our way altogether, Aline, and never get out of this horrible place?”
It was a terrible thought; and the damp smell and forbidding looking narrow stone passage had a strange effect on the children’s nerves. Then another thought occurred to Aline that made them still more nervous. There were occasional slits along the wall for ventilation and she remembered the words that she had read by chance when she first discovered the use of the parchment. Supposing that their light should be seen; what would happen to them then? and yet they dare not put it out and be left in the dark.