down. "It's dark here,
but there's a room below; quite a good room. And I have candles."

Truly a room. Built of old brick, and damp, but with a free circulation
of air. Old Adelbert stared about him. It was not entirely dark. A bit
of light entered from the aperture at the head of the steps. By it, even
before Bobby had lighted his candle, he saw the broken chair, the piece
of old carpet, and the odds and ends the child had brought.

"I cook down here sometimes," said Bobby, struggling with matches that
had felt the damp. "But it is very smoky. I should like to have a stove.
You don't know where I can get a secondhand stove, do you? with a long
pipe?"

Old Adelbert felt curiously shaken. "None have visited this place since
you have been here?" he asked.

"I don't suppose any one knows about it. Do you?"

"Those who built it, perhaps. But it is old, very old. It is possible--"

He stopped, lost in speculation. There had been a story once of a
passageway under the wall, but he recollected nothing clearly. A
passageway leading out beyond the wall, through which, in a great siege,
a messenger had been sent for help. But that was of a passage; while
this was a dungeon.

The candle was at last lighted. It burned fitfully, illuminating only a
tiny zone in the darkness.

"I need a lantern," Bobby observed. "There's a draft here. It comes from
the other grating. Sometime, when you have time, I'd like to see what's
beyond it. I was kind of nervous about going alone."

It was the old passage, then, of course. Old Adelbert stared as Bobby
took the candle and held it toward a second grated door, like the first,
but taller.

"There are rats there," he said. "I can hear them; about a million, I
guess. They ate all the bread and bacon I left. Tucker can get through.
He must have killed a lot of them."

"Lend me your candle."

A close examination revealed to old Adelbert two things: First, that a
brick-lined passage, apparently in good repair, led beyond the grating.
Second, that it had been recently put in order. A spade and wheelbarrow,
both unmistakably of recent make, stood just beyond, the barrow full of
bricks, as though fallen ones had been gathered up. Further, the padlock
had been freshly oiled, and the hinges of the grating. No unused passage
this, but one kept in order and repair. For what?

Bobby had adjusted the mask and thrust the knife through the belt of his
Norfolk jacket. Now, folding his arms, he rec