Mrs. Grant looked the group over, and nodded approvingly.
“No; there ain’t a lagger in the lot,” she said with conviction. “And there’s just one thing I don’t like about it; and that is that Hannah and I can’t go along with you.”
CHAPTER XV
THE HOUSE OF REFUGE
Paul Varley was sorely shaken by his plunge into the depths of the ancient cellar. He struck its floor so heavily, indeed, that the breath seemed to be driven from his body.
For a little he lay, motionless and half stunned. Then, his brain clearing, and, be it said, his general sense of numbness giving place to a number of distinct aches and pangs, he groaned, raised himself on an elbow, sat up, and tried to peer about him.
The movements had accentuated the pains. Paul groaned again. Even at that moment, though, the greatest of his troubles was the gloom in which he found himself.
Except for the pale patch of light above his head, indicating the break in the flooring of the room he had first entered, everything was in darkness; not an even darkness, but patchy, lumpy, with weird suggestions of shadowy and grotesque shapes.
Experimentally Paul drew up a knee, and found that the joint was in working order. He stretched out his arms. One of them was lame and sore, but he appeared to have escaped broken bones. Encouraged slightly, he tested his other leg, closing the test with a vigorous kick. His foot encountered an obstacle, and a voice spoke in the darkness.
“Hi there! What do you think you’re doing?”
It was a startled voice, and a wrathful voice. The sound of it gave Paul an instant of dazed bewilderment. His wits were working, but he hadn’t recalled the circumstance that he was not alone in his misadventure.