There was no other outlet, and the place was narrow and damp. He
looked wistfully at the solitary door, feeling a vague suspicion that
it barred the entrance to a mystery, and resolved to return at some
future time, when not so harassed with sleepiness and the fatigues of
travel, and make another effort to open it. Paul looked above, and as
he did so a gust of air swept down the narrow opening and blew out
his light; at the same instant he heard the fall of the scuttle and
realized that he was shut in.

"Trapped! and by my own cursed curiosity," he muttered, as he
commenced groping his way up in the darkness. But it was not so easy
as he had supposed. Twice he slipped his foot into a rotten hole, and
once the stairs trembled so violently that he thought they were about
to fall. Nevertheless he reached the top, as he realized when his
head came in contact with the trap-door, upon the other side of which
he pictured Ah Ben standing with an amused smile. Henley placed his
shoulder against the door, and to his amazement found that it opened
quite easily. He then procured a light, and having satisfied himself
that there had never been the slightest intention to entrap him, the
door having simply fallen, he went hurriedly to bed.




4


The breakfast room was a charming little corner reclaimed from a
dingy cell, where in by-gone days guns and ammunition had been
stored, but the peace-loving inhabitants of later times had rendered