Andy swung himself from the main beam upon the lower piece of timber, and, summoning up his courage, launched himself off from the swaying perch.
Slowly he descended, spinning round on the straining rope like a joint on a meat-jack, while at almost every second his shoulders or hips came into contact with the jagged walls of the shaft. To avoid the dust he kept his head bent downwards, and as he did so he saw the glimmer of the lantern from beneath.
"Thirty feet, do you call it?" he asked, as his feet touched the floor of the pit, and his father grasped his hand. "It's sixty at the very least."
"I don't think so," was the reply. "You see, looking down from a height the distance always appears greater. Had the floor been hard rock, I should have been killed or at least seriously injured. But to change the subject, look here."
Mr. McKay had, during the long interval of waiting since Ellerton had lowered the lantern, made another tour of exploration, and now he led the way towards the tunnel where he had found an old musket.
He had made a strange discovery. At no very distant date a long cavern of varying height and breadth existed here. Where its entrance was Mr. McKay had not found out; but a volcanic disturbance had caused a mighty fissure to divide the original cave in two, as an examination of the strata proved conclusively.
Casting off the rope from around his waist, Andy followed his father into the tunnel-like cavern, stooping as he did so, for its mouth was barely five feet in height.
At ten paces from its mouth the passage turned almost at right angles to its former direction, and expanded into a broad and lofty chamber. Almost covering the width of the four sides was a range of arm-racks filled with old-time weapons. The candle-light flashed upon the bright barrels of musket and pistol, and glittered on the steel of bayonet, cutlass, sword, and pike, for so dry was the atmosphere that a couple of centuries had not left any appreciable trace on the metal.
"Great Scott! How did these get here?" asked Andy, after he had recovered from his astonishment.
"It's the armoury of some long-forgotten buccaneer," replied his father. "I've had plenty of time to look round since you first sent me the lantern, and none of these weapons are later than the earlier part of the eighteenth century, or the last part of the seventeenth. See, these muskets have Vauban locks, a combination of flint and matchlock. These kinds of muskets were used at the battles of Steenkirke and Landen. You can also see that all these bayonets are the plug variety, that is to say they were plugged into the barrel of the musket, thus temporarily converting it from a firearm to a pike. These are evidently the original bayonets used in the reign of James II., so that we can fix the period at which they were stored here to within a few years, since the socket type were introduced early in the reign of William III."