the four children and one
bird fell in a heap together, and as they fell were plunged in perfect
darkness.

'Are you all there?' said Anthea, breathlessly, through the black dark.
Every one owned that it was there.

'Where are we? Oh! how shivery and wet it is! Ugh!--oh!--I've put my
hand in a puddle!'

'Has any one got any matches?' said Anthea, hopelessly. She felt sure
that no one would have any.

It was then that Robert, with a radiant smile of triumph that was quite
wasted in the darkness, where, of course, no one could see anything,
drew out of his pocket a box of matches, struck a match and lighted a
candle--two candles. And every one, with its mouth open, blinked at the
sudden light.

'Well done Bobs,' said his sisters, and even Cyril's natural brotherly
feelings could not check his admiration of Robert's foresight.

'I've always carried them about ever since the lone tower day,' said
Robert, with modest pride. 'I knew we should want them some day. I kept
the secret well, didn't I?'

'Oh, yes,' said Cyril, with fine scorn. 'I found them the Sunday after,
when I was feeling in your Norfolks for the knife you borrowed off me.
But I thought you'd only sneaked them for Chinese lanterns, or reading
in bed by.'

'Bobs,' said Anthea, suddenly, 'do you know where we are? This is
the underground passage, and look there--there's the money and the
money-bags, and everything.'

By this time the ten eyes had got used to the light of the candles, and
no one could help seeing that Anthea spoke the truth.

'It seems an odd place to do good and kind acts in, though,' said Jane.
'There's no one to do them to.'

'Don't you be too sure,' said Cyril; 'just round the next turning we
might find a prisoner who has languished here for years and years, and
we could take him out on our carpet and restore him to his sorrowing
friends.'

'Of course we could,' said Robert, standing up and holding the candle
above his head to see further off; 'or we might find the bones of a
poor prisoner and take them to his friends to be buried properly--that's
always a kind action in books, though I never could see what bones
matter.'

'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane.

'I know exactly where we shall find the bones, too,' Robert went on.
'You see that dark arch just along the passage? Well, just inside
there--'

'If you don't stop going on like that,' said Jane, firmly, 'I shall
scream, and then I'll faint--so now then!'

'And _I_ w