and still be perfectly safe.
I'll come for you as soon as I can get rid of them."

"All right. But will you be safe yourself? Oughtn't you to come with me,
Boris?"

"Oh, they won't do anything to me! I'm only a boy, you see. They'll
never think that I could be dangerous. In with you, now! We can't keep
the soldiers out. I don't want to give them an excuse for burning the
place down, and they'd do it in a minute if there was any resistance."

CHAPTER VI

THE TUNNEL

Fred found the secret passage much less confusing than he had thought it
likely to be. As soon as he had stepped in, the panels slid back into
place, and the passage was immediately dark. But Boris had had time to
find an electric torch for him, and had told him where to find
another--or two or three, for that matter--when that was exhausted.

"We've always kept them there in case of emergencies," he had explained.

So Fred had felt assured of a supply of light, which was the one
absolutely necessary thing if, as was entirely possible, the German
soldiers stayed in the house for any time. One other thing, of course,
was necessary; food and drink. And that, too, he knew where to find.
Boris had told him of a store of compressed foods, and of fresh water,
piped into this amazing passageway from the outer entrance, far beyond
the limits of the gardens and grounds of the house.

The first thing Fred did was to switch on the light of his torch and
inspect the warren in which he had found sanctuary. It was not at all
the musty, bad smelling place he had expected it to be. The walls had
been plastered and stained a dull grey, which did not reflect the light
from his torch appreciably. The arrows appeared, as Boris had said they
did, at frequent intervals.

"Not much of a secret." That was Fred's first thought. "But it needn't
be. The men who worked in here are the ones the family can trust
absolutely, I suppose."

It gave Fred a certain thrill to feel himself in touch with such things,
to know that he belonged to such a family as the Suvaroffs, capable of
inspiring such devotion in its retainers--which, though Boris regarded
it as a matter of course, seemed a great thing to Fred, with his
American upbringing.

"What a piece of luck!" he reflected. "Imagine my stumbling on such a
splendid fellow as Boris! If it hadn't been for all this trouble, I
might never have known I had a cousin! And he's the sort of cousin I
call worth having! He amounts t