Then, in an open circular space like a great well, still all hewn from the solid rock, we came upon the vanguard of our people, Andros and Alec directing, where, clustered upon a flight of rock-hewn steps, several men strove with hammer and crow to prize open an enormous circular iron door which closed the top of the shaft as a trapdoor does a well. The air was hot, and I could see the sweat on the men’s faces as they worked in the torches’ smoky glare. Alec came down the steps when he saw us, his mail scarred and dirty, blood down one leg from a scratch across the thigh, and a baresark light in his blue eyes.
“Come on, John; for God’s sake, lend a hand! They’ve shut that trapdoor down and got a fire going on top!”
Wrexham went up the steps where the men beat ineffectually upon the iron door, the clanging echoes of their blows ringing dully in the well-like shaft. He laid his hand on the iron and drew it away with an oath. Then he studied the trapdoor and the wall around it for a while before coming down to where Andros had joined Alec and me at the foot of the shaft.
“They’ve stimied us all right for the moment,” he said, sucking his burnt hand. “You could hammer on that all day without making any impression. And before long the whole thing will be red-hot. Powder’s our only chance, though I don’t know if I can get it into place without being pushed off ourselves in the process. Luckily the bags are tarred, so we can wrap wet blankets round them as a precaution against sparks from the torches. Here, Alec; you can go quicker than Harry. Cut along and get up my sapper blokes.”
He gave the doctor a long list of gear to bring up. Then he turned and explained his plan to Andros, who hurried off to improvise another storming party.
The heat was getting stifling, and the men peeled off their mail and leather. I took another look around the shaft in the flickering torchlight. There were slits around us, evidently loopholes of a flanking passage, and before each waited an archer with bow ready strung and arrow in place, ready to loose at the first movement. From the bodies dotted about I guessed that those loopholes had paid for their construction when our people first got into the shaft. But the enemy had been driven out now and made no sign.
“I’d like to have driven a chamber under the edge of the trapdoor,” said Wrexham, mopping his face, “but the whole thing’s solid rock. It must have taken years and years to make.”
“How are you going to do it now?”
“Simply pile up the powder in the middle, and block the passage with sandbags to prevent it blowing back. It’ll be a three-hour job, at least. God send a spark doesn’t push us all off while we’re working. We must have a chain of watermen going all the time to keep things damp.”
“Well, I’m going back outside for a bit; it’s too hot in here. I’ll tell Andros to send up more men to relieve your birds at the loopholes, and then I’ll bring up my own people to take a hand.”