"Ah—ah! Keep off—keep off!" shrieked the dying man. "Is not one ghost enough to haunt me, that the voice of the man I helped to bury in this devil's den must come ringing in my ears? Keep off, I say! Detective Hook, I know your voice! I did not raise a hand to kill you! You know it well enough!"
Crack!
The last match possessed by the detective is lighted—he holds it to the face before him.
"Reuben Tisdale, you, the most successful maker of burglars' tools known among the crooks of New York!"
The man raised himself with difficulty, gazing with wild, staring eyes upon the detective's face.
"Alive—alive!" he gasped. "It is hours since we threw you here, dead, as we all supposed."
"But I still live, Reuben Tisdale, and so perhaps may you. Answer, man! Beside that trap-door overhead, is there no way out of this?"
"Yes—yes," murmured the burglar, sinking back upon the muddy floor. "There is a secret passage, and you shall escape; for me there is no hope; Callister has settled me; foul fiend that he is. But I will be revenged—I swear it! I will tell the truth, as I hope to meet my poor wife above. Ha—ha! Elijah Callister, did I not speak the truth? There is fate in this—it is written that I should live to be the Jonah of the crowd!"
"Speak!" cried the detective. "Show me the way out of this and I will save you if it costs my life!"
"No, no," moaned the dying man. "It's no use—it's all up with Rube Tisdale at last, but you shall be saved: the secret passage leading from this place can be opened by a pressure of hand. It shall be opened, and you shall live, it is within my reach to do it, even as I lay here now."