“There are soldiers, too.  They are here much sooner than I thought they could come!” exclaimed Boris.  “Here, into that passage with you!  Listen!  Follow the arrows!  They will lead you down.  Stop at a double arrow.  You will be able to hear.  The wall is very thin there, on purpose.  You can hear what is going on in the great hall and still be perfectly safe.  I’ll come for you as soon as I can get rid of them.”

“All right.  But will you be safe yourself?  Oughtn’t you to come with me, Boris?”

“Oh, they won’t do anything to me!  I’m only a boy, you see.  They’ll never think that I could be dangerous.  In with you, now!  We can’t keep the soldiers out.  I don’t want to give them an excuse for burning the place down, and they’d do it in a minute if there was any resistance.”

CHAPTER VI

THE TUNNEL

Fred found the secret passage much less confusing than he had thought it likely to be.  As soon as he had stepped in, the panels slid back into place, and the passage was immediately dark.  But Boris had had time to find an electric torch for him, and had told him where to find another—­or two or three, for that matter—­when that was exhausted.

“We’ve always kept them there in case of emergencies,” he had explained.

So Fred had felt assured of a supply of light, which was the one absolutely necessary thing if, as was entirely possible, the German soldiers stayed in the house for any time.  One other thing, of course, was necessary; food and drink.  And that, too, he knew where to find.  Boris had told him of a store of compressed foods, and of fresh water, piped into this amazing passageway from the outer entrance, far beyond the limits of the gardens and grounds of the house.

The first thing Fred did was to switch on the light of his torch and inspect the warren in which he had found sanctuary.  It was not at all the musty, bad smelling place he had expected it to be.  The walls had been plastered and stained a dull grey, which did not reflect the light from his torch appreciably.  The arrows appeared, as Boris had said they did, at frequent intervals.

“Not much of a secret.”  That was Fred’s first thought.  “But it needn’t be.  The men who worked in here are the ones the family can trust absolutely, I suppose.”

It gave Fred a certain thrill to feel himself in touch with such things, to know that he belonged to such a family as the Suvaroffs, capable of inspiring such devotion in its retainers—­which, though Boris regarded it as a matter of course, seemed a great thing to Fred, with his American upbringing.

“What a piece of luck!” he reflected.  “Imagine my stumbling on such a splendid fellow as Boris!  If it hadn’t been for all this trouble, I might never have known I had a cousin!  And he’s the sort of cousin I call worth having!  He amounts to something—­and I don’t believe he’s as old as I am.  Well, I’ve got to show him that an American scout can keep up his end!  I’ll try to play the game with him.”