ice,' says I, before ever you
spake a word."

"And oh, aren't we sick of it--just sick of it!" chimes in Dolly Venn
as he climbs the ladder like a cat and stands willingly at my side.

I pressed his hand, and showed him the revolver I carried.

"Whip it out, lad, whip it out," said I; "we've work to do to-night for
ourselves and another. Oh, I count on you all, Dolly, as I never
counted before!"

He would have said something to this, I make sure, but the others came
through the trap while I spoke, and four more astonished men never
stood in a cavern to ask, "What next?"

"The ladder to the reef side," said I, putting their surprise by and
turning to the Italian in whose hands our lives might lie; "can men
hold the top of it, or is it best taken by the sea?"

He answered me with a dramatic gesture and a face which spoke his
warning.

"At the rockside it is straight; they shoot you from the top, captain.
No man go up there from this place. They fire guns, make noise."

"And the report will call the others," said I. "So be it; but we'll
close that door, anyway."

It was Greek to the others, and they gaped at the words. From the room
which I had locked loud shouts were to be heard and heavy blows upon
the iron panels. That such cries would call men from the sea presently,
I knew well. We had but a few minutes in which to act, and they were
precious beyond all words. The gate must be shut though a hundred lay
concealed in the rooms of mystery about us. On our part we staked all
on chance; we threw the glove blindly to fortune. And, remember, I
alone knew anything of that house in which we stood; that house, above
which the sea ever rolled her crested breakers and lifted her eerie
chantry. My shipmates were but astonished strangers, not willing to go
back, yet half afraid of that which lay before them. The bright lights
in the caverns, the dark doors opening into darkness, and upon these
the great corridor, so vast, so gloomy, so mysterious, were to them new
pictures in a wonderland the like to which they had never seen before
and will never see again.

"What place is this, and where is the best parlour?" asks Peter Bligh,
his clumsy head blundering to a question even at such a time. "'Tis
laid out for a small and early, and crowns to be broken," says he.
"Have you took it furnished, or are there neighbours, sir? 'Tis a queer
house entirely."

I cut him short and turned to the doctor.

"What news of the foot,