“First I’ll investigate these visitors,” he said easily, though he felt far from easy within.
“Me too,” she said firmly if ungrammatically, and since Val could not wait to argue, she went along.
They took the route she had watched the invaders follow, wriggling through wet bushes and around trees.
“Val, look out!” She grabbed his arm and so saved him from tumbling headlong into a black hole in the ground. Vines and a small shrub or two had been ruthlessly torn out to bare the opening. It was here that the visitors must have gone to earth. And then Val had a glimmering of the truth; the “Boss” and his friends had at last found Jeems’ private door.
Prudence urged that they return to the house and send Sam Two or some other messenger down to the crossroads store to summon the police by phone. Prudence however had never successfully advised any Ralestone. They had a decided taste for fighting their own battles. So, torch in hand, Val dropped into the hole. And a moment later Ricky slid down to join him.
They stood in a rough passage. Stout timbers banked its sides and guarded the roof. There was a damp underground smell such as Val had noted in the cellar of the house, but the air was fresh enough. After the first hasty survey, the boy held his fingers over the bulb of the flashlight so that only the faintest glimmer escaped to light their path.
The passage was short, ending abruptly in a low bricked room. Save for themselves, a tangle of rotting rope in a far corner, and two lively black beetles, it was empty.
“Val,” Ricky’s throaty whisper reached him, “can’t you guess what this is? The first pirate Ralestone’s storage-house!”
It was a likely enough explanation—though nothing could have been stored there very long; the place was too damp. Beads of slimy moisture from the walls dripped slowly down, shining like silver in the light.
At the other side of the room was a corridor branching away. But this they barely glanced into, little knowing how that neglect was to prove disastrous in the end. It was the main door to their right which interested them most, for that led, so far as Val could determine, toward the house. And that must have been the one the mysterious visitors had followed.
Thus they came into the second of their pirate ancestor’s storerooms. This one was long and narrow. Three wooden casks eaten with decay and spotted with fungus stood against the wall, testifying to the use to which this chamber had been put, though the all-pervading damp could not have been good for the wine.
Again a dark archway tempted them on, and the third room into which they came had a more grim reminder of the scarlet past of the house. For Ricky stumbled over something which clinked dully. And when Val used the flash they looked down upon a telltale length of chain ending in an iron ring, its other end soldered into the wall.
“Val,” Ricky’s voice quavered, “did—did they keep people here?”
“Slaves, perhaps,” her brother answered soberly and shoved the rusting metal aside with his foot. But there were two other chains hanging from the wall, speaking of past horrors of which he did not care to think.
And then as their light picked out these damning testimonials, Val thought that the Ralestones, for all their pride and fine, brave airs, had been only pirates after all, akin to those whom they were now hunting through the dark.
There was a low arched doorway of brick on the right side of the room, and this they passed through. Beyond were three broad stone steps, worn a little on the treads, one cracked clear across. These led to a wide landing paved with brick. Here the walls were brick as well. Ricky touched one involuntarily and drew back her hand with a little exclamation of disgust. She wiped her palm vigorously on the wet surface of her cape.
Everywhere was the smell of rot and slow, vile decay. In spite of its historical associations, decided Val, this vault should be sealed forever from the daylight and left to the sole occupancy of those nameless things which creep in its dark. The very air, in spite of its freshness, seemed tainted.
Another flight of stairs was before them, the treads fashioned of stone but equipped with a rotted wooden handrail. And above was the faint reflection of light and the sound of voices. Val hesitated and realized for the first time how foolhardy their expedition was.
Those above would be prepared to handle interruptions. Val was determined to keep Ricky out of trouble, and to go on alone was the rankest folly. But, as he hesitated, the decision was taken out of his hands, for the light above suddenly became brighter. Grabbing at Ricky’s arm, he stumbled back into the shelter of the archway, pulling her after him.
A round circle of light shone plainly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. Ricky’s breath was warm on Val’s cheek and she moved with a faint crackling of her cape which sounded as loud as a thunderclap in his ears.
“How’re we gonna do it without bustin’ the wall down?” demanded an aggrieved voice from the top of the stairs. “There ain’t no knob, no handle, no nothin’ to work it from this side. And these guys what stored their stuff here in the boot-leggin’ days never got into the house.”
“The boy got through, didn’t he?” Val knew that voice, the Boss of the swamp meeting. “Well, if he did, we can.”
“Lissen, Boss, it’s a secret, ain’t it? An’ we gotta know how it works before we can work it. An’ lissen here, you swamp bum, you keep outta my way—see? I don’t care if you were one of Mike Flanigan’s boys; that don’t cut no ice
