all in order that I might be sure where it
lay, and having done so crossed the room. My heart was beating like a
Nasmyth hammer, and it was nearly a minute before I could pull myself
together sufficiently for my rush. Then summoning every muscle in my
body to my assistance, I dashed across and at it with all the strength
my frame was capable of. Considering the darkness of the room, my
steering was not so bad, for my shoulder caught the door just above its
centre; there was a great crash--a noise of breaking timbers--and amid a
shower of splinters and general _debris_ I fell headlong through into
the passage. By the time it would have taken me to count five, Beckenham
was beside me helping me to rise.

"Now stand by for big trouble!" I said, rubbing my shoulder, and every
moment expecting to see a door open and a crowd of Prendergast's
ruffians come rushing out. "We shall have them on us in a minute."

But to our intense astonishment it was all dead silence. Not a sound of
any single kind, save our excited breathing, greeted our ears. We might
have broken into an empty house for all we knew the difference.

For nearly five minutes we stood, side by side, waiting for the battle
which did not come.

"What on earth does it mean?" I asked my companion. "That crash of mine
was loud enough to wake the dead. Can they have deserted the place,
think you, and left us to starve?"

"I can't make it out any more than you can," he answered. "But don't you
think we'd better take advantage of their not coming to find a way out?"

"Of course. One of us had better creep down the passage and discover how
the land lies. As I'm the stronger, I'll go. You wait here."

I crept along the passage, treading cautiously as a cat, for I knew that
both our lives depended on it. Though it could not have been more than
sixty feet, it seemed of interminable length, and was as black as night.
Not a glimmer of light, however faint, met my eyes.

On and on I stole, expecting every moment to be pounced upon and seized;
but no such fate awaited me. If, however, our jailers did not appear,
another danger was in store for me.

In the middle of my walk my feet suddenly went from under me, and I
found myself falling I knew not where. In reality it was only a drop of
about three feet down a short flight of steps. Such a noise as my fall
made, however, was surely never heard, but still no sound came. Then
Beckenham fumbled his way cautiously down the ste