hey have guns. You cannot go,
captain! What good the key when men have guns?"

"We'll see about that," said I. And cocking my pistol I strode to the
door he indicated.

It was an iron door, opening inward to a small apartment cut out of the
solid rock. For a while I could see nothing when I entered the little
cavern--it laid bare; but, becoming used to the dim light presently, I
took a few steps forward, and looking up I saw a rocky chimney and an
orifice far up and the stars glimmering in the grey--blue sky above me.
This, then, was the second gate to Czerny's house, I said; the seagate
by which his men passed in. Here, as yonder where Miss Ruth's apartment
lay, the reef lifted itself above the highest tides; here was the gate
we must shut if the night were to be won. And who would dare it with
armed men on the threshold, and a ladder for foothold, and the
knowledge on our part that one word of the truth would dig a grave for
recompense? And yet it had to be dared; a man must go up that night for
a woman's sake.

Well, I took off my boots at the ladder's foot, and thrusting my pistol
into my waist-belt I spoke a warning word to Peter Bligh.

"This," said I, taking from Regnarte the key I needed, "this opens the
iron doors you will meet down yonder. If misfortune happens to me, go
straight through and take my place. Hold the rooms as long as you can
and let your judgment do the rest. Belike Mister Jacob will come back
with the ship. I wish to God I could think so!" I added.

He nodded his head, and but half understanding what I was about he
watched me anxiously when I put my naked foot with wary step on the
ladder and began to go up. I saw him for a moment, a comrade's figure
in the dim light of the cavern, and then thinking only of my purpose,
and of what it would mean to one who waited for me, I clenched my teeth
and began my journey. Below me were the little cave and the glimmer of
a distant lamp, shipmates crying "God speed!" the hidden house, the
mystery; above me that dark funnel of the rock and the sky, which
seemed to beckon me upward to freedom and the sea.

If danger lay there I could not espy it nor detect its presence. Not a
sound came from the open trap, no figures were to be seen, no spoken
voice to be heard. The moaning waves upon the iron reef, the echo of
gunshots in the silence of the night, alone spoke of life and being and
the open sea without. And I went up like a cat, rung by rung, my hand
h