"He would not have shown it us had it been a trap," I replied. "There must be some signs of a doorway or secret entrance. Perchance we have already passed it."
"If we cannot find it, we have tools wherewith we can dig a way out," said the colonel, indicating our weapons, which we one and all, save the wounded men, retained. "I'll warrant the surface of the ground is not ten feet above our heads."
"If the passage leads under the Downs, it may be five hundred," exclaimed Ralph moodily.
"Talking will not find it, so let's to work," said the colonel cheerfully, and taking a torch from one of the men, he began to retrace his footsteps, looking both at the sides and roof of the tunnel as he went.
"The air seems fresh enough," he said. "So we need not fear suffocation for a while, at any rate. But there's no sign of an opening, though your father expressly mentioned 'twas easy enough to find."
At length he returned to the end of the passage, where we had remained, endeavouring to dislodge some of the flints with a stout knife, but without avail. The man who had built that passage must have meant it to last, for the cement was as hard as the flints.
"Let me mount on your shoulders," said I to one of the men, a tall, broad-shouldered farmer from Compton. From this height I could examine the roof, which at no part was more than seven feet in height, though my face was almost touching the jagged flints of the crown of the arch.
In one place it looked as if a crack existed in the cement, and taking the knife from its owner's hands, I scratched the point against the supposed joint in the stonework.
My efforts met with no success, but just at that moment the knife slipped from my hand and fell to the ground. A shout from Firestone caused me to look down in alarm.
"Has it struck your foot?" I asked anxiously.