her to follow.

They were in a passage six feet in height and about three feet broad,
which seemed to lead on indefinitely into clammy darkness. The dewy
stone walls sparkled in fantastic and ghostly iridescence under the rays
from the lantern. The dank air lay moist against their faces.

"It's a long time since I've been here," said Marta, glad to break the
uncanny sound of their footsteps in the weird silence with her voice.
"Not since I was a youngster. Then I came on a dare to see if there were
goblins. There weren't any; at least, none that cared to manifest
himself to me."

"We have a goblin here now that we are nursing for the Grays--an
up-to-date one that is quite visible," said Lanstron. "This is far
enough." He paused and raised the lantern. With its light full in her
face, she blinked. "There, at the height of your chin!"

She noted a metal button painted gray, set at the side of one of the
stones of the wall, which looked unreal. She struck the stone with her
knuckles and it gave out the sound of hollow wood, which was followed,
as an echo, by a little laugh from Lanstron. Pressing the button, a
panel door flew open, revealing a telephone mouthpiece and receiver set
in the recess. Without giving him time to refuse permission, her thought
all submissive to the prompting spirit of adventure, she took down the
receiver and called: "Hello!"

"The wire isn't connected," explained Lanstron.

Marta hung up the receiver and closed the door abruptly in a spasm of
reaction.

"Like a detective play!" were the first words that sprang to her lips.
"Well?" As she faced around her eyes glittered in the lantern's rays.
"Well, have you any other little tricks to show me? Are you a
sleight-of-hand artist, too, Lanny? Are you going to take a machine gun
out of your hat?"

"That is the whole bag," he answered. "I thought you'd rather see it
than have it described to you."

"Having seen it, let us go!" she said, in a manner that implied further
reckoning to come.

"If out of a thousand possible sources one source succeeds, then the
cost and pains of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine are more than
repaid," he was saying urgently, the soldier uppermost in him. "Some of
the best service we have had has been absurd in its simplicity and its
audacity. In time of war more than one battle has been decided by a
thing that was a trifle in itself. No matter what your preparation, you
can never remove the element of chan