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At first we could find nothing, so we were proceeding to search the outside, when I saw the three men laughing. Not feeling at all satisfied I turned the cows out and looked under the litter, where I discovered a trap-door, under which when I had opened it I found a flight of steps leading into a cellar, which contained upwards of twenty bales of tobacco.

Then there was a sound of breaking timber, and presently the edge of the trap-door began to lift and creak under the pressure of some powerful instrument. Another moment and it flew open and a man looked in, but of course could see nothing.

"Wonder where it can be got," said Peter to himself; and then he turned round, ran along the loft, dropped down through the trap-door, and nearly slipped and fell, so hurried was his flight. Half-across the yard he came upon Dan'l wheeling a barrow full of mould for potting. "Hallo! what's the matter?" Peter gasped and panted, but said nothing. "Haven't seen a ghost, have you?" said Dan'l.

"By thunder," he said softly to himself. "I'll do it." He shoved the bunk away from its place in the corner, opened a trap-door in the floor and, lamp in hand, went down into the cabin's cellar. Here was a long pine box, hooped with tin bands for shipping, its lid securely nailed on. He set down his lamp and with shirt-sleeve wiped off some of the accumulation of dust and spider-web.

'No, said the poor creature, shaking his head, 'no, never. 'Nor any house but that house in Yorkshire? 'No, rejoined the youth, with a melancholy look; 'a room I remember I slept in a room, a large lonesome room at the top of a house, where there was a trap-door in the ceiling.

He remembered that beneath the iron-bound box in the corner there was a trap-door which descended to the unused cellar, for his workshop had in former times been a wine-shop, and he had hired the cellar with it. One sharp blow would have done the business.

No men died ever by the silken cord, and no tales ever reached the outside world of who did die down in the echoing brick cellars; there was a path that led underground to the alligator tank and a trap-door that opened just above the water edge.

Into the store-room the manager led them, and unlocked a heavy little trap-door within; then, one by one, the ominous-looking cases were dragged forth, hoisted, and swiftly borne to the mouth of the mine.

And if he had known the full truth, he might have regretted that he had not caused the lair to be furnished with a trap-door by means of which the timid could sink into the earth. The truth was that Janet had called purposely to inspect Edwin at leisure. "The Light of Asia" might as easily have been ordered at Hanbridge, where her father and brothers ordered all their books in fact, more easily.

A rusty ring lay flat in a little hollow in the surface of the trap-door. Marzio bent over it with a pale face and gleaming eyes. It seemed to him as though, if he looked round, he should see Paolo's body lying on the floor, ready to be dropped into the space below. He raised the wood and set the trap back against the wall, peering down into the black depths.