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"I will tell the truth," the girl continued. "I was fool enough once to come here to meet that man" she pointed to De la Borne "that is all over. But one night I was restless, and I came wandering through the plantation here. It was then I saw from the other end that the place had been altered, and it struck me to listen there where the air-shaft is.
He hardly opens his mouth on the way up to the hotel, but trails along silent, his eyes fixed starey, like he was thinkin' deep. "Well," says I, after a bell-hop had shown us into one of the Tillington's air-shaft rooms and gone for ten cents' worth of ice water, "it looks like you had the Big Boss almost buffaloed with that pirate tale of yours." Rupert don't enthuse much at that.
Quickly he took the curious affair, which he had hastily shaped, and fastened it under the table at that point, then led the wires out through a little barred window to an air-shaft, the only means of ventilation of the place except the door. While he was working I had been gingerly inspecting the rest of the den. In a corner, just beside the door, I had found a set of shelves and a cabinet.
The mouth of the shaft was covered with substantial timbers, save for a small iron-barred door securely padlocked. The pit now served a useful purpose as air-shaft for the Silver Stream, and the iron-runged ladders still ran down into its black depths. The boys kept to the timber, and presently found themselves climbing down the rugged rocks where the hillside suddenly became an abrupt wall.
At length she gave a roll to leeward and failed to recover herself. From some air-shaft there came a ceaseless whistle, deep and sonorous, like the emission of air from the bunghole of a beer-barrel. The engines were quite still, even the steam had ceased to rise. Luke stood holding Agatha with one arm.
And for respite, we must trust to the ancient knowledge, which in its day has been sent out from the Ark of the Mysteries." I took the green waxy ball in my fingers, and stretched them down the crooked air-shaft to the full of my span. "I have somewhat for you here. Reach up and try to catch it from me."
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