The two came opposite them, and stopped a moment, as though they might be wishing to investigate the contents of the sacks that stood nearby, hidden by the enveloping darkness.  The tension under which Cleek and the youthful Dollops laboured was tremendous.  Not daring to breathe they stood there hugging the wall, their every muscle aching with the strain, and then the two strangers walked on again, still talking in low, casual voices, until they had reached the end of the passage where the steps started abruptly upward.  Then a patch of light showed suddenly.

“Steps here; be careful.  They’re none too easy,” came the cautious voice of Black Whiskers.  “I’ll go up first, so’s you kin follow in my steps.  What’s this?  The door been left open, eh?  I’ll ’ave a few words with that chap Jenkins afore I’m many days older.  I’ll larn ’im to disobey ’is orders!  Any one might come along ’ere and drop in casual-like!...  The unreliable swine!”

The light grew less and less as the bearer of it climbed the rude stairs, and finally vanished altogether.  And as it disappeared Dollops clutched Cleek’s arm, his breath coming in little gasps.

“The door, sir—­” he gasped.  “If they close that, we’re—­” And even as he spoke there came a sound of sliding bolts and a thump which told the truth only too well.

“Did you ’ear, sir?” he almost moaned.

The trap door had been closed.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE DARK

Better men than they might have quailed in such a predicament.  Here they were, at ten o’clock at night, shut in an underground passage that led heaven only knew where, and with, to say the least of it, small chance of escape.  They might stay there all night, but the morning would probably bring release and—­discovery.  It was a combination which brought to them very mixed emotions.

Black Whiskers, should he be their rescuer might at once assume an entirely different role—­would most likely do so, in fact.  There was a grim element in this game of chance which they would just as soon had been absent.

Well, here they were, and the next thing would be to try their hands at escape on their own account.  Perhaps the trap-door hadn’t been tightly fastened down.  It was a chance, of course.

“We’ll try the trap-door end first, lad,” said Cleek.  “If that doesn’t work we’ll have a go at the other, but somehow you must get to the docks by midnight.  You may learn the whole secret there, and it would be the worst luck in the world if you missed the chance; you mustn’t.  Come on.”

“I seconds that motion,” threw in Dollops, though in a somewhat forlorn voice.  “I kin just imagine what it must be like to be a ghost tied up in a fambly vault, an’ it fills me with a feelin’ of sympathy for them creeturs wot I never felt before.  Like a blooming messlinoleum this is!”

“Mausoleum, you grammatical wonder!” responded Cleek, and even in his anxiety he could not refrain from a laugh.