The voices rose to a high pitch and then died away. Silence followed, and then came the sound of retreating footsteps.
“They’re going away!” exulted Tom. “Now I’ve got a chance to walk toward that daylight and see where I am. Maybe I’d better wait a few minutes, though. They may come back.”
He waited what he thought was several minutes and then, hearing no other sounds of voices or footsteps, began a cautious approach toward that gleam of light. What a blessed thing light was, after all that black and clinging darkness!
In silence Tom crept on, advancing one foot after the other cautiously, and keeping one hand extended to give warning of his approach toward any obstruction while in his other hand he held the file like a dagger, ready to use.
But there was no occasion for this. A little later he found himself standing in a circle of daylight illumination that filtered down an inclined shaft which led out of a tunnel, such as Tom could now ascertain he was in. A natural tunnel it appeared to be, with rocks jutting out here and there in the earthen sides. Roughly the tunnel was in the form of a half circle, the floor being flat and the roof arched. The inclined entrance led upward in a gentle slope.
“Well, now to see what’s up there!” said Tom to himself, taking a long breath and holding his weapon ready. He tensed his muscles and steeled his nerves for what he felt might be a desperate struggle. Yet he did not shrink back.
As he advanced cautiously, step by step, up the incline that led to daylight and the outer world, he felt at first a sense of disappointment when he saw no one with whom he might come to grips. He had been treated so meanly that it would have been a source of satisfaction to have had it out in a rough-and-tumble fight with those responsible.
But, to his surprise, Tom pushed his way out through a tangle of underbrush and bushes which grew about this end of the tunnel and found none to dispute him. This surprise was added to when he looked about him and found out where he was.
“On Barn Door Island!” exclaimed Tom. “Of all places! Barn Door Island! But how did I get here? It’s miles away from where I went down those steps near our plant. Of all places! Barn Door Island!”
This was a small island in Lake Carlopa which had been named Barn Door because, some time or other, one of the early settlers happened to remark that it was no larger than the door of a barn. The island was at the end of the lake farthest removed from Shopton and the Swift plant.