He stopped, lost in speculation. There had been a story once of a passageway under the wall, but he recollected nothing clearly. A passageway leading out beyond the wall, through which, in a great siege, a messenger had been sent for help. But that was of a passage; while this was a dungeon.
The candle was at last lighted. It burned fitfully, illuminating only a tiny zone in the darkness.
“I need a lantern,” Bobby observed. “There’s a draft here. It comes from the other grating. Sometime, when you have time, I’d like to see what’s beyond it. I was kind of nervous about going alone.”
It was the old passage, then, of course. Old Adelbert stared as Bobby took the candle and held it toward a second grated door, like the first, but taller.
“There are rats there,” he said. “I can hear them; about a million, I guess. They ate all the bread and bacon I left. Tucker can get through. He must have killed a lot of them.”
“Lend me your candle.”
A close examination revealed to old Adelbert two things: First, that a brick-lined passage, apparently in good repair, led beyond the grating. Second, that it had been recently put in order. A spade and wheelbarrow, both unmistakably of recent make, stood just beyond, the barrow full of bricks, as though fallen ones had been gathered up. Further, the padlock had been freshly oiled, and the hinges of the grating. No unused passage this, but one kept in order and repair. For what?
Bobby had adjusted the mask and thrust the knife through the belt of his Norfolk jacket. Now, folding his arms, he recited fiercely,
“‘Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’”
“A spirited song,” observed old Adelbert, as before. But his eyes were on the grating.