Blind Peter and old John waited on the top of the ladder leading down into the vault, expecting the return of Tom or Charley, or else to receive some signal from them announcing the progress they had made. Peter listened attentively—“I hear them going round and round the vault to look for the passage,” he observed to old John. “It must be a large place, larger than I thought for, and they don’t seem to be able to find the passage.”
“Maybe there’s no passage to find,” said John sagaciously.
Still they did not come back, and Peter declared that he could no longer hear their footsteps. They waited and waited, but the explorers did not appear. Old John suggested that there might be some pit or hole into which they had tumbled, and perhaps nothing would ever again be heard of them; but the idea was too terrible to entertain, for Peter had a sincere regard for Tom, and Charley’s blithe voice and kind manners had won his heart. They ought at once to have gone to Captain Askew, and procured proper assistance, with lights, ropes, and ladders. Old John was scarcely able to descend the ladder, and did any hole exist, the blind man would most probably have fallen into it. Notwithstanding this he proposed descending, till old John persuaded him to give up the idea, and at length, when it would very likely be too late to save the lives of the explorers, they agreed to summon the captain. Captain Askew could scarcely understand the account he heard. That there was a vault under the Tower he was ready to believe, as he now remembered hearing the report that one existed, but that his young friend Charley and old companion Tom should have gone into it and been irretrievably lost he would not believe. He would immediately have descended himself to look for them, but that his timber-toe and a rickety ladder did not suit each other. He considered whom he could summon in the village, but they were all more or less connected with the smugglers. He however determined to ask the assistance of some of the most trustworthy among them. He took his hat and was hurrying down the hill when he met one of the men of the coastguard going his rounds. He at once agreed to accompany the captain, but said that by the delay of twenty minutes or so he could obtain the assistance of two or three of his mates, and as he could be of little use by himself, the captain begged him to get them as soon as possible.
The captain then went back to the Tower, and found blind Peter and old John waiting at the trap-door. They had heard sounds, they said, but had got no answer to their shouts. In vain the captain also hailed as a sailor alone can, though his voice had perhaps lost something of its strength. All remained silent below, and his fears for the safety of his friends increased to a painful degree. At last the coastguard men arrived—stout fellows, well armed—with their lanterns and ropes; they were not likely to be baffled in the search. As, however, they stood over the entrance of the dark abyss, the countenances of most of the party turned pale. They were ready to face smugglers or pirates, Russians, Frenchmen, Turks, or savages of every description, all the enemies of their country; but they had heard of the Tower being haunted, and suppose any of the ghosts, or spirits, or imps, who frequented the spot, should start up and confront them! The captain saw what they were thinking about. Following the system he had always adopted where danger was to be incurred, he exclaimed, “Lower me down first, my lads, I’ll see what is to be seen.” Suiting the action to the word he fastened a rope round his waist, and, with the help of it and the ladder, soon reached the bottom. The men now followed without hesitation, the captain leading the way, and looking round and round the vault. “It is very extraordinary,” he exclaimed at length. “I can scarcely believe that they came down here, there is no hole into which they could have fallen, no outlet through which they could have passed.”
“It’s vary terrible, vary terrible indeed, sir,” said Sandy MacGregor, an old Scotchman and the chief boatman. “It’s the spirits or the bogies ha’ carried them off, there’s na doubt about that, and it’s only to be hoped that they’ll na come and carry us awa’ too.”
The fear thus expressed very soon communicated itself to the other men, and had a rat started up, although they would not have deserted the captain, their knees would certainly have shaken as they had never done in the presence of a mortal foe.
“Nonsense, my man,” exclaimed Captain Askew. “There are no spirits in this vault to hurt us, and depend on it if our friends have been carried away spirits have had nothing to do with it; still, I tell you, I cannot account for it.”
It was indeed strange. Every cell, every nook and corner was examined. The sides of the vault were either solid rock or masonry. There was no place through which two people could have passed by any visible means. At length, most unwillingly, Captain Askew told the men that he should return into the Tower. The order was obeyed with wonderful alacrity, and they were well pleased when he told them that he would be the last man up. They were all soon out of the vault, and ready to assist him up in the way he had gone down. He had to confess himself thoroughly baffled. When he talked the subject over with Mrs Askew, they could neither of them account for the way in which their dear child had been so cruelly carried off, nor how Tom nor Charley had disappeared, and yet they were fully convinced that human agency alone had been at work.
Meantime Becky had taken charge of the coasts guard men, and blind Peter and John, and was able, in spite of her grief, to serve them with bread and cheese and cider. As they continued to discuss the matter, Peter was the only one who persisted in asserting that human agency alone had been employed, while Sandy MacGregor as strongly maintained that spirits of a very disreputable nature had a finger in the pie. That, however, like other matters of mystery, was one day to receive a solution.