Cecil pushed his way against the panels and opened the clumsy door.  They groped their way down the passage.

“Faugh!” Forrest exclaimed.  “What smells!  Cecil,” he added, “I suppose half the village know about this place, don’t they?”

“They know that it has been here always,” Cecil answered, “but they most of them think that it is blocked up now.  We did try to, Andrew and I, but the masonry gave way.  These lumps on the floor are the remains of our work.  Keep your torch down.  You’ll fall over them.”

Forrest stopped short.  Curiously enough, it was he now who seemed the more terrified.  The wind and the thunder of the sea together seemed to reach them through the walls of earth in a strange monotonous roar, sometimes shriller as the wind triumphed, sometimes deep and low so that the very ground beneath their feet vibrated as the sea came thundering up into the cove.  Cecil, who was more used to such noises, heard them unmoved.

“If my people had left me such a dog’s hole as this,” Forrest declared viciously, “I’d have buried them in it and blown it up to the skies.  It’s only fit for ghosts.”

The very weakening of the other man seemed for the moment to give Cecil added courage.  He laughed hoarsely.

“There are worse things to fear,” he muttered, “than this.  Hold hard, Forrest.  Here is the door.  I’ll undo the padlock.  You stand by in case he makes a rush.”

But there was no rush about Engleton.  He was lying on his back, stretched on a rough mattress at the farther end of the room, moaning slightly.  The two men exchanged quick glances.

“We are not going to have much trouble,” Forrest muttered.  “What a beastly atmosphere!  No wonder he’s knocked up.”

Cecil, however, looked about suspiciously.

“Don’t you notice,” he whispered, “that we can hear the wind much plainer here than in the passage?  I believe I can feel a current of fresh air, too.  I wonder if he’s been trying to cut his way through to the air-hole.  It’s only a few feet up.”

He flashed his light upon the wall near where Engleton was lying.  Then he turned significantly to Forrest.

“See,” he said, “he has cut steps in the wall and tried to make an opening above.  He must have guessed where the ventilating pipe was.  I wonder what he did it with.”

They crossed the room.  The man on the couch opened his eyes and looked at them dully.

“So you’ve been improving the shining hour, eh?” Forrest remarked, pointing to the rough steps.  “We shall have to find what you did it with.  Hidden under the mattress, I suppose.”

He stooped down, and Engleton flew at his throat with all the fury of a wild cat.  Forrest was taken aback for a moment, but the effort was only a brief one.  Engleton’s strength seemed to pass away even before he had concluded his attack.  He sank back and collapsed upon the floor at a touch.