It was soon after midnight that Frank awakened with a strange feeling of dread.
He looked about the room, but so far as he could see at first everything was as it had been left when they went to sleep. All at once, however, his attention was attracted to the fireplace by a slight scratching sound. He gazed over toward the hearth, and to his unbounded astonishment and no small alarm he saw the hearthstone suddenly begin to swing slowly back, and, through the aperture thus created on the side nearest the room, he saw human finger tips cautiously poking about. Suddenly an entire hand was thrust through the crack.
Suddenly an entire hand was thrust through the crack.
What was coming next Frank had no idea, but with a violently beating heart he lay watching the aperture while a second hand joined the first and gave the stone a feeble shove upward. It swung back on its invisible hinges till a space of perhaps three feet yawned between it and the floor, and then a face made its appearance.
It was the face of a very old man with venerable white beard and mild, timid, blue eyes. Frank almost closed his eyes, and from under their lashes watched the old man painfully lift himself out of the tunnel into the room. Once in the room he tiptoed about among the sleepers, gazing at them earnestly to make sure they were all asleep, and then, returning to the hole beneath the hearthstone, reached down and drew out a bag that seemed to weigh considerably.
But the exertion seemed to exhaust his feeble strength, for with a groan he fell back into a rough chair, and the sack fell from his trembling hands with a crash. The sudden sound woke all the adventurers, and they sprang to their feet with their weapons in their hands.
The sight of the feeble old man, however, gasping in the chair, with his hand on his heart as if he was in mortal pain, soon convinced them that it was no dangerous enemy with whom they had to deal.
“Don’t, don’t hurt me,” cried the old man pitiably, as the boys and their elders closed in about him. “I will tell you all, only don’t hurt me. Spare a poor old man who has not long to live; let him spend his last hours in peace.”
“We do not wish to hurt you,” Frank assured him, “we want to aid you. Are you ill?”