saved him from being hurled to the bottom of it.

"Halt!" he cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it was
too late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up the
boot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, and
was not in the least his fault.

"Do keep your nose off my boots half a sec.," he remarked, but not
crossly. "I'll strike a match."

And he did, and by its weird and unscrutatious light looked down into
the precipice.

Its bottom transpired to be not much more than six feet below, so Oswald
turned the other end of himself first, hung by his hands, and dropped
with fearless promptness, uninjured, in another cellar. He then helped
Denny down. The cornery thing Denny happened to fall on could not have
hurt him so much as he said.

The light of the torch, I mean match, now revealed to the two bold and
youthful youths another cellar, with _things_ in it--very dirty
indeed, but of thrilling interest and unusual shapes, but the match went
out before we could see exactly what the things were.

[Illustration: OSWALD DID NOT STRIKE THE NEXT MATCH CAREFULLY ENOUGH.]

The next match was the last but one, but Oswald was undismayed, whatever
Denny may have been. He lighted it and looked hastily round. There was a
door.

"Bang on that door--over there, silly!" he cried, in cheering accents,
to his trusty lieutenant; "behind that thing that looks like a _chevaux
de frize_."

Denny had never been to Woolwich, and while Oswald was explaining what a
_chevaux de frize_ is, the match burnt his fingers almost to the bone,
and he had to feel his way to the door and hammer on it yourself.

The blows of the others from the other side were deafening.

All was saved.

It was the right door.

"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tell
them there are all sorts of things in here--a _chevaux de frize_ of
chair-legs, and----"

"A shovel of _what_?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other side
of the door.

"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get a
candle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back the
way we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorry
for afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the others
heard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were being
climbed over.

This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise the
barrels insi