“If I’m hard pressed, I’m as safe here as in a castle,” he explained. “If they happen to get in the house, I can take refuge here. Look! Don’t you think I could drop them easily enough as they came down those steps one by one?”
It seemed true enough but I was not yet satisfied.
“Suppose they set the house afire?” I asked.
He took me by the arm and led me to the part of the cave that was hidden under the stairs. Here it was gloomiest and very dark. The rays from the candle flickered as though they were sucked by a slight current of air. But where I expected to find a wall there was no wall at all, only a great hole large enough for a man to enter by stooping a little. It was of jagged rock on all sides, as canny a place as I had ever seen.
“Let them fire the house,” he declared. “There is the way to freedom and the open air. It is fifty roods long. The other end leads out among rocks and the roots of ancient trees. You’d never find it in a week’s search not even if I showed it to you beforehand.”
He put the clothing and the bow and arrows back as he had found them and we went again up the stairs.
“Why have you shown me this hiding place of yours, master scrivener?” I inquired. “Aren’t you afraid lest some day I betray you?”
He snapped his fingers.
“It’s known already,” he said. “I’ll have to abandon it. Those two knaves outside will spread the news to all the world.”
“It’s a shame,” I ventured.