“Captain Scurlock?” Emily whispered, questioning.
“Maybe,” Kipper said. He lifted the button from Emily’s hand and held it close to the lantern. “Or one o’ his ugly crew. But doing what? Looks like more questions, Emily.” He shoved the button in his pocket and then raised the lantern, shining it to the left of where they stood. The light revealed a solid wall of blackened rock only a few feet away. “See? Ain’t any way out o’ this tunnel excepting the way we just came down, and we both know there ain’t anyone but us has used them steps in a long, long time. Looks like they just been using this as a meeting place, though beats me why. There’s lots cozier places in this world.”
Kipper paused to shine his lantern in the opposite direction. The light hit a solid wall as well, but only of darkness, not rock. “This is where they come from, Emily, whoever they be. I got to admit, I’m scared to go on. But right now curious is getting the better of coward. You game to go on?”
Emily wanted to shake her head. She did not want to go into that terrifying blackness. But there were still questions, so many questions, to be answered. What if the tunnel would provide the answers? One answer. Any answers.
“I—I’m game,” Emily said.
“Thought you would be,” said Kipper.
They started down the grim, dark tunnel.
FOURTEEN
The Jolly Sailor
The darkness in the tunnel seemed dense as stone. Kipper’s small lantern light bobbed about with hardly more effect than if he’d been holding a firefly on a chain. They could barely see the pools of murky water that lay along the path under still, deadly grey vapors, the evil breath of the sleeping serpent. Two rats scurried by, sending a cold rush of air up their legs. Emily stifled a shriek, and the lantern in Kipper’s hand shook violently. But nobody suggested going back. They simply went on.
And on. With blackness closing in behind them, and blackness barely opening ahead, there was no way of telling how far they had come or how far they might have to go, twisting and turning. There was no way to measure time or distance. But just as Emily began to wonder if they might not wander down the tunnel forever, Kipper clutched her arm.
“Look, Emily!”
They had finally arrived at a flight of steps that was a twin to the one by which they had climbed down into the tunnel.
“Are we going up them?” Emily whispered.
“Looks like we ain’t got anyplace to go but up, or back,” Kipper replied. “See, Emily, beyond them steps is a rock wall same as the other. Appears the tunnel runs from where we come from to where we got to, and no more.”
They stood still a moment, looking up and listening. There was only silence from above. Then Kipper motioned to Emily and began to climb the steep stairs. When he reached the trapdoor overhead, he drew a deep breath and pushed the door up a crack. Then he gave a low whistle. “Wheeoo!”
“What is it, Kipper?” Emily asked.
“Dingus, Emily!” Kipper turned to her with the oddest expression on his face. “I think what we just arrived at is the cellar o’ the tavern near Pa’s fish shop.”
Emily didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry over this discovery. All that treacherous journey only to end up at a place near Kipper’s home! And the comical look on Kipper’s face!
Kipper peered through the trapdoor again. “Now I’m certain as I can be. We’ve come to the cellar o’ The Jolly Sailor, which I run errands for and the like. This is where the wine and the spirits get kept. Why, dead ahead’s that big old keg what’s been warmed by my bottom more times than a fish flaps his fins, as Pa always says. Come ’long, Emily, let’s go on up!”
They scrambled quickly through the open trapdoor, and then Emily was able to study the room they entered. Two whale oil lamps on the walls dimly lit up row upon row of waiting bottles, staring across the room at one another with vacant cork eyes. Huge blackened kegs studded the floor with no semblance of order at all, as if they were the abandoned toys of a giant’s child grown tired with his game. It was like nothing Emily had ever seen before, until suddenly her eyes fell on something totally familiar, something she had climbed over time and again in her own family attic.
“Kipper!” she cried. “My two trunks over there in the corner! What are they doing here?”
She threaded her way around the giant kegs to where the trunks lay. Kipper ran to her side. The locks had been pried off both trunks, so it was an easy matter to lift the lids and look in.
“Empty!” said Kipper with disgust. “Beats me what the scurvy lot what frequents this ’stablishment wants with silk dresses and lace petticoats no bigger than would fit a tadpole. And ain’t anybody what can get much payment for old clothes no matter how fancy they once was.”
“But Kipper,” Emily said, “it wasn’t just my clothes in the trunks. All Mama’s jewels were in the trunks, too! Everything!”
Kipper’s jaw fell open.
