“But can they get across by any means?” I queried, knowing well the characters of the quartette.
“Impossible—absolutely impossible,” Reilly replied. “I can jump as far as most men, but I couldn’t jump that. They have no ropes, or any means by which to bridge the death-trap.”
I glanced at my watch. It was then a quarter past four. Morning broke, bright and sunny, with a slight mist rising from the river, but still we waited in that upstairs room for signs of the invaders returning.
Half an hour went by, and suddenly we heard noises below.
They were trying to raise the trap-door down which they had passed, but we knew that all efforts to do so were useless, for, besides the stones upon it, we had so wedged the crowbars across and into holes in the wall that to push up the flap was utterly impossible.
From where we stood we could hear their voices mingled with the groans of their united efforts.
“Stay there, you unutterable sons of dogs!” growled Job Seal, and although those were not exactly the words he used, they were synonymous.
I stood listening, and could hear the low curses of the men whom we had captured like rats in a run.
Together we went downstairs and out into the early sunshine. The bright air refreshed us, although our thoughts were with those four men consigned to a living tomb.
Presently we re-entered the house and descended to the cellar where they had been at work. By the light of a candle which the skipper carried we were surprised to see what an enormous hole they had made through the foundations into the earth beyond. Indeed, they had taken out a great piece of the wall, and through the rough arch had driven a tunnel two yards high and some three yards long. It was there they had evidently expected to discover the treasure, but, like ourselves, they had worked in vain.