Cecil nodded.

"I can," he answered. "Quite a weird place it is, too. The walls are
damp, and the cellars themselves are like the vaults of a cathedral.
All the time at high tide you can hear the sea thundering over your
head. To-morrow, if you like, we will get torches and explore them."

"I should love to," Jeanne declared. "Can you get out now at the
other end?"

Cecil nodded.

"The passage," he said, "starts from a room which was once the
library, and ends half-way up the only little piece of cliff there
is. It is about thirty feet from the ground, but they had a sort of
apparatus for pulling up the barrels, and a rope ladder for the men.
The preventive officers would see the boat come up the creek, and
would march down from the village, only to find it empty. Of course,
they suspected all the time where the things went, but they could
not prove it, and as my ancestor was a magistrate and an important
man they did not dare to search the house."

The Princess sighed gently.

"Those were the days," she murmured, "in which it must have been
worth while to live. Things happened then. To-day your ancestor
would simply have been called a thief."

"As a matter of fact," Cecil remarked, "I do not think that he