Loge raised his hand and sped a last bullet at the detective, grazing
Barnstable's temple.

"Come in and get me!" he shouted.

Barnstable fired, just as a whirl of smoke blew in front of Loge.

Cleggett thought the outlaw staggered, but he was not certain.

A moment later a portion of the roof fell; then the east wall crashed
in. Morris's was a blazing ruin.

"He has perished in the flames," said Wilton Barnstable. "So ends
Logan Black!"

"More like he's blowed his head off," said Cap'n Abernethy. "If you
was to ask me, that's what I'd do."

"He has done neither!" cried Cleggett. "He has taken to the tunnel.
That man will fight to the last breath."

And without waiting to see whether the others followed him or not
Cleggett set off at top speed for the Jasper B.

With a dagger between his teeth, his pistol in its holster, and his
electric, watchman's lantern in his pocket he entered the tunnel and
crawled forward on his hands and knees. If Loge were in there indeed
he had the fire at one end and Cleggett at the other. But even at
that, escape was possible, for all Cleggett knew. What ramifications
this peculiar passageway might have he could not guess.

The place was narrow, and in spots so low that it was necessary for a
man to crouch almost to the ground. Cleggett, because he did not wish
to reveal his presence, did not flash his lantern; there were stretches
where he might have stood almost erect and made quicker progress, if he
had found them with the light. The earth beneath him was beaten hard
and smooth.

Cleggett thought possibly that the tunnel had originally led from
Morris's basement to the smuggler's cave which Wilton Barnstable had
spoken of, and that it had been extended later to the ship. He learned
afterwards that this was true from the men who had surrendered. The
Jasper B. had been abandoned for so long, and was so completely
abandoned except for the visits of Cap'n Abernethy, who fished from it
now and then, that Loge had conceived the idea of making it the
back-door, so to speak, of Morris's. In the event of a raid upon
Morris's his "get-away" through the hulk was provided for. He had
intended buying the ship himself; but Cleggett had forestalled him.

From the prisoners Cleggett also learned later that two men had been
concerned in the explosion which had broken the big rocks on the plain.
One of them had won the Claiborne signet ring at poker after Reginald
Maltravers ha