so they
won't hear or bother about us again. The other thing's only that I've
been back to the Free Library in what the simple inhabitants still
insist on calling the Village, and had another look into those annals of
old Witching Hill. I can find no mention whatever of any subterranean
passage. I shouldn't wonder if good Sir Chris had never heard of it in
his life. In that case we shall rush in where neither man nor beast has
trodden for a hundred and fifty years."

We lit our candles down the shaft, and then I drew the Dutch chair over
the hole again on Delavoye's suggestion; he was certainly full of
resource, and I was only too glad to play the practical man with my
reach and strength. If he had been less impetuous and headstrong, we
should have made a strong pair of adventurers. In the tunnel he would go
first, for instance, much against my wish; but, as he put it, if the
foul air knocked him down I could carry him out under one arm, whereas
he would have to leave me to die in my tracks. So he chattered as we
crept on and on, flinging monstrous shadows into the arch behind us, and
lighting up every patch of filth ahead; for the long-drawn vault was
bearded with stalactites of crusted slime; but no living creature fled
before us; we alone breathed the impure air, encouraged by our candles,
which lit us far beyond the place where my match had been extinguished
and deeper and deeper yet without a flicker.

Then in the same second they both went out, at a point where the
overhead excrescences made it difficult to stand upright. And there we
were, like motes in a tube of lamp-black; for it was a darkness as
palpable as fog. But my leader had a reassuring explanation on the tip
of his sanguine tongue.

"It's because we stooped down," said he. "Strike a match on the roof if
it's dry enough. There! What did I tell you? The dregs of the air settle
down like other dregs. Hold on a bit! I believe we're under the house,
and that's why the arch is dry."

We continued our advance with instinctive stealth, now blackening the
roof with our candles as we went, and soon and sure enough the old tube
ended in a wad of brick and timber.

In the brickwork was a recessed square, shrouded in cobwebs which
perished at a sweep of Delavoye's candle; a wooden shutter closed the
aperture, and I had just a glimpse of an oval knob, green with
verdigris, when my companion gave it a twist and the shutter sprang open
at the base. I held it up