used, to once more accustom his eyes to the dimness
which now, however, was not impenetrable, as in their cell, because of
the moonlight. Presently he was able to make out a long hall with only
two doors breaking the double expanse of wall. One door, on the right,
was massive and over it was a huge iron bar in a socket.

"That's the door to the cell they had us in," said Frank, with
conviction, as they stood grouped before it. "Brrr. We'd have had a
fine chance to break that down."

Leading the way and walking on the balls of his feet, shoes in hand,
Jack moved forward to the other door and had just laid his hand on the
knob and was about to turn it, when he heard voices on the other side
and the sound of footsteps mounting upward.

His mind worked lightning-fast in this crisis. It was the door of a
stairway leading to the lower part of the house. Somebody was
ascending it, not one man but several. They could have only one
purpose. There was only one room up here on this upper floor--the
cell. Therefore, whoever was coming up intended to visit them,
thinking they still were in that room.

These thoughts flashed through Jack's mind in less time than it took a
man to mount a step. And, as quickly, he thought of a plan. Turning to
his companions, he whispered:

"Quick, get back to the cupola stairs, Frank, because you're nearest.
Then run up and lower the trapdoor, and crouch outside until I call
you. The rest of us can crouch down in this little space beyond the
door, and we'll be hidden by it when the door swings open."

Frank was off on noiseless feet, while the other four huddled into the
space indicated by Jack. By the time the men mounting the stairs swung
the door inward, Frank had succeeded in gaining the cupola. The noise
made by the rusted hinges, as the trap was lowered was covered up by
the voices of the men.

Fortunately, they did not close the stair door, but left it standing
open, thus hiding the four behind it. There were three in the party,
judging by the sound of voices and footsteps, and one at least carried
a powerful electric flashlight.

"Thought I heard a scratching sound," said a voice, which Jack and Bob
recognized as that of Higginbotham. "But I guess it was made by mice.
This old house is filled with them."

A few steps farther along the party paused, and Jack, looking from his
hiding place, saw three figures, shadowy and indistinct, before the
huge door of the cell, upon which one man