"Come after me, Maaster Jasper," said Eli; "maake 'aste, they may come after us."
So I squeezed my body through the trap-doorway, and prepared to follow him.
"Cloase thickey trap, Maaster Jasper," said Eli, and I saw his strange eyes shining in the dim light.
In my eagerness to do this I made the thing drop heavily, and the noise echoed and re-echoed through the building.
"That'll waake 'em up," cried Eli. "Come on, come vast, Maaster Jasper!"
With an agility of which no man would have thought him capable, he hurried down the steps, mumbling fiercely to himself all the time. I soon found that this stairway was very crooked and often small. I imagined then, what I have since found to be true, that the house in which I had been imprisoned had been used as a place of storage for smuggled goods, while the way by which I was trying to escape was a secret way to it.
We had not descended many yards before I heard voices above, while I knew that feet were tramping on the floor of my late prison. Evidently the noise I had made in closing the trap-door had aroused my warders, and they would now do their utmost to capture me.
My senses were now fully alive, and I determined that it should go hard with those who tried to hinder my escape. To my dismay I discovered that I had left my iron bar behind, and that I had no weapons, save my two hands, which had naturally been weakened by my long imprisonment. However, there was no time for despair, so I followed close on Eli's heels, who wriggled his way down the crooked and often difficult descent.
We must have got down perhaps one hundred feet, when, turning a corner, a current of air came up, blowing out Eli's light and leaving us in darkness.
"Can 'ee zee, Maaster Jasper?" cried Eli.