“There’s a rope up here. Give me your stick, Andrew, and I’ll hook it down.”
Bates and the remaining keeper immediately crowded into the fireplace, and we, listening down the chimney, heard a scrabbling and a scuffing, and then a light appeared, and the same voice said:
“Here’s a passage. Here’s three candles and a half, and candle-grease all along. That’s where they’ve gone. I’m a-going to crawl in there.”
“Hold up a bit, Jim,” the young keeper called out; “I’m coming too.”
“So will I,” cried the other, whose curiosity was excited by the discovery of a passage; and, “So will I,” cried Bates, who did not choose to be left alone in the shadowy old ruin.
There was a great deal of scuffing and scraping, and we two, lying flat on the wall with one eye each over the edge of the orifice, saw four pairs of heels alternately kick and struggle and finally disappear down the passage.
“Come on, Percy,” I exclaimed. “Let us get down the wall while we can.”
“Wait a bit,” he replied. “There’s something else to be done first.”
To my surprise he let down the rope and vanished into the chimney again. He was back in a minute, however, and pulling up the rope, he sprang to his feet and cried:
“Now we’re all right. They won’t catch us to-night, I think.”