“Why, he’s going upstairs—to the balcony!” whispered Bert. “I can hear him going upstairs! I wonder why he’s doing that?”
Bert took a few steps forward and then suddenly felt himself falling.
“Oh! Oh!” he gasped as he realized what had happened. He had stepped into an open trapdoor in the center of the vestibule floor, and was tumbling into the cellar of the church!
CHAPTER IX
NAN IS WORRIED
Bert Bobbsey was not a long while falling through the trapdoor. In fact, it took hardly a second. But in that short time the boy had time to hear Danny Rugg come clattering down the stairs that led to the balcony of the church. And from the speed with which Danny ran, Bert guessed that the other boy was frightened.
“I guess the noise I made when I stumbled and yelled scared Danny,” thought Bert. Later he learned that this was so.
But poor Bert did not have time to think of much. He felt himself falling, he heard Danny’s frightened rush out of the church, and then Bert landed on what seemed to be a pile of old bags in the basement of the church.
Then Bert felt a sharp pain in his head, which struck something hard, and a moment later stars seemed to be dancing in front of his eyes—stars in the darkness. Then Bert knew nothing more. He was unconscious, just as if he had fainted.
And there the poor lad was, alone in the dark basement.