my nerves all strung up,
I struck down with the butt-end of my pistol, and, as God is my
witness, I swung over the trap and shot the bolts and locked the great
padlock before the other could move hand or foot. For the foreigner
fell, without a cry, headlong into the sea which played at his very
feet.

"Shut--shut, by thunder!" cried I to those below, and gladder words a
seaman never spoke to comrades waiting for him. "One gate more and the
night is ours, lads!"

They heard me in astonishment. Remember how new this place of mystery
was to them; how little I had told them of that which I do. If they
followed me like the brave men that they were, set it down to the
affection they bore me, and the belief that I led them on no child's
errand. So much must have occurred to them as we gained the upper house
and shut the iron doors behind us. The way lay to the sea again, the
road most dear to the heart of every sailor. Let the main gate of
Czerny's house be closed and all was won, indeed.

Aye, and you shall stand with me as, mounting a broad stairway beyond
Miss Ruth's own door, I found myself out upon a great plateau of rock,
and beheld the silent ocean spread out like a silver carpet before my
grateful eyes, and knew that the house was ours--that house the like to
which no man has built or will build during the ages.

CHAPTER XIX

WHICH SHOWS THAT A MAN WHO THINKS OF BIG THINGS SOMETIMES FORGETS THE
LITTLE ONES

I was the first to be out on the rock, but Peter Bligh was close upon
my heels, and, wonderful to tell, the Italian almost as quick as any of
us. To what gate of the sea the staircase was carrying me I knew no
more than the others. The time was gone by when anything in Czerny's
house could surprise me; and when at the stairs' head we found that
which looked for all the world like a great port-hole with a swing door
of steel to shut it, I climbed through it without hesitation, and so
stood in God's fresh air for the first time for nearly three days.

That this was the main gate to the sea I had all along surmised, and
now proved surely. No sooner was I through the door than all the world
seemed to spread out again before my eyes--the distant island, the
shimmering sea, the blue sky shut to us through such long hours. The
rock itself, where we gained foothold, lifted itself clear and dry
above the breakers at my feet. There were steps leading down to the
water's edge, a still pool wherein boats were warped,