Adams was still searching when Mr. Jope called to
him from the end of the corridor:
"Here we are!"
He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral crypt, leading
down to a stone archway. The archway was closed by an iron-studded
door.
"It's like goin' to church," commented Mr. Jope, bating his voice.
"Where's the candles, Bill?"
"In the barrer 'long wi' the bread an' bacon."
"Then step back and fetch 'em."
But from the foot of the stairs Mr. Jope presently called up that
this was unnecessary, for the door had opened to his hand--smoothly,
too, and without noise; but he failed to note this as strange, being
taken aback for the moment by a strong draught of air that met him,
blowing full in his face.
"There's daylight here, too, of a sort," he reported: and so there
was. It pierced the darkness in a long shaft, slanting across from a
doorway of which the upper panel stood open to the sky.
"Funny way o' leavin' a house," he muttered, as he stepped across the
bare cellar floor and peered forth. "Why, hallo, here's water!"
The cellar, in fact, stood close by the river's edge, with a broad
postern-sill actually overhanging the tide, and a flight of steps,
scarcely less broad, curving up and around the south-west angle of
the house.
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