“No, doctor, it ain’t. I know rats well enough. Where’s your pistol? You may want it.”
I nipped out of bed, and in a couple of minutes stood ready, revolver in hand. Awakened suddenly out of my sleep I moved mechanically, convinced that the finding of the bones and the superstition of the skipper were responsible for it all. But he was deadly in earnest, I saw, and I think that aroused me to a true sense of the situation.
To move about without noise in an empty house is a rather difficult matter, but we all three crept out into the corridor and listened.
The noise seemed to proceed from the centre room—the one wherein we had first discovered a hidden chamber. We opened the door and entered noiselessly.
Yes, the sound came distinctly from the secret hiding-place. Carefully we pushed open the thick oak door and stepped inside.
The sawing stopped, but below where we stood we heard men’s voices speaking in gruff undertones.
Our enemies were undermining the house!
CHAPTER XXV
REVEALS THE DEATH-TRAP
We strained our ears to distinguish the words spoken by the men beneath us, but without avail.
They seemed to be at work apparently in the thickness of the ponderous wall some few feet below where we stood. Was it possible that they had ascertained from their plan the place where the gold was hidden?