It was too dark to do anything but feel their way up; Mr Rollitt leading, and testing every step as he went along.
“Why,” said Wally suddenly, and with a touch of alarm in his voice, as they were halting a moment to allow Mr Rollitt to inspect with the end of a lucifer one of the loophole windows, “why, look up there—there’s a light!”
They looked. And there, struggling apparently from under a door which closed the head of the stairs, came a streak of light.
“I say—it’s ghosts,” said Fisher minor. “Let’s go back.”
“More likely it’s my Alf,” said Mr Rollitt. “I know’d he was somewheres not fur off.”
He went up, followed at a more respectful distance than before by the boys, and pushed open the door.
They heard the sound of an exclamation within, and a noise as of some one starting to his feet. Next moment, as the light streamed down the staircase, they heard a familiar voice say—
“Father!”
“That’s me, Alf, my boy; I know’d you was somewheres ’andy.”
“I say,” said Wally, in an excited whisper to his followers, “we’d best cut back, you chaps. They don’t want us up there.”