Negotiation of the entrance of all into the passageway was made without accident, Tom Barnum staying until next to last and then, with a number of belts buckled together, aiding Frank to gain the opening. Meanwhile Jack, who was in the lead, found on closer investigation that the slatted shutter obscuring the air port was on hinges and caught with a rusted latch. To open the latch and unhinge the shutter and then, by turning it sideways, pull it back into the passageway and place it noiselessly on the floor, was a comparatively simple matter.

Whispering to Captain Folsom, next in line, to pass the word along that all should stay in the passageway while he investigated the situation outside, Jack squirmed partway through the opening, faced upward, took a good clutch on the shingled edge of the rooftree and gradually drew his body out and over the edge of the roof. When, finally, he lay extended on the roof, clutching the saddle for support, he was 115 of the opinion that Captain Folsom with only one arm to aid him, certainly could not negotiate the exit in similar fashion, and examined the shingles to see whether they could be torn up sufficiently to admit of his friends climbing through.

The moon shone brilliantly. On that side of the house were no lights in any windows. No sounds of any human activity came to him. The house was large, with numerous gables that prevented Jack from seeing seaward.

Leaning over the edge of the roof, he called in a low voice to Captain Folsom who looked up from the little window. Jack told him to wait, and explained he was going to try to rip off a number of shingles.

“But the crosspieces to which the shingles are nailed are close together,” Captain Folsom objected. “They are too close to permit of our crawling through. And, while they are light and might be broken, yet we would make considerable noise doing so and might give the alarm.”

Jack considered a moment.

“That’s true,” he replied. “But, if I break off the shingles around the peak of the roof, here at the very end, you will have a better chance to climb out, then, because you will have the exposed crosspieces to cling to.” 116

Working rapidly, Jack managed to remove a patch of shingles over a space of several square feet, in short order. By the exercise of extreme caution, he was enabled to complete the work without making other than very slight noise.

“Now,” he said, speaking through the bars made by the crosspieces, “come ahead, Captain. Put your head backward out of the window, and place your hand just where I tell you. I shall hook my feet under these crosspieces to brace myself. That will leave both hands free to aid you.”

Captain Folsom followed directions, and with Jack lending his support, he managed to gain the roof. Then Bob, Tom Barnum and Frank followed in quick succession. To make room for them, Jack and Captain Folsom had worked their way along the rooftree, which was not the main rooftree of the house, they had discovered, but that of one of the side gables, with which, as Jack phrased it, “the house was all cluttered up.”

This particular rooftree was blocked ahead by the cupola, to which Jack earlier had referred. It was a square, truncated tower with a breast-high wooden balustrade around it. Jack climbed up this balustrade, and Captain Folsom, with Bob aiding him from the rear and Jack giving him a hand in front, followed. 117

Then, while the others were clambering up, Jack cast a quick look around from this eminence. He found, however, that the trees of the grove cut off any view of the beach. But he was enabled to see the grill-like towers of the radio station some distance to the left of the house. With satisfaction, he noted not a light was shown, and apparently the place was deserted.

Still not a sound of human activity of any sort reached him, and Jack was puzzled. Had their captors departed, and left them bound, in that apparently impregnable cell, to die? He could not believe it. No, surely they were not to be killed. Either the house was to be abandoned by the smugglers, and their friends and families would be notified where to find them, or else, the smugglers intended to return for them presently.

If this latter supposition were correct, then, thought Jack, it behooved him to act quickly. For, if the smugglers returned and found they had escaped from the cell, there would be only one conclusion to draw as to their method of escape, and that would be the right one.

Bending down, he saw at once in the bright moonlight the outlines of a big trapdoor under his feet. A ringbolt at one edge showed how it was raised. Seizing it in a firm grip, Jack started to raise the 118 trap. His heart beat suffocatingly. What would he find underneath?

An inch at a time Jack raised the trap, while the others knelt at the sides, peering through the growing opening. Only darkness met their gaze, and the smell of hot air imprisoned in a closed house came out like a blast from a furnace door. The hinges, apparently long unused and rusted, creaked alarmingly despite all the care Jack exercised. But not a sound came up from below.

At length Jack threw back the door, and the bright moonlight pouring down the opening in a flood of silver revealed a narrow, ladder-like stairway descending to an uncarpeted hall. Jack started down with the others at his heels.

In the hall he paused, to once more accustom his eyes to the dimness which now, however, was not impenetrable, as in their cell, because of the moonlight. Presently he was able to make out a long hall with only two doors breaking the double expanse of wall. One door, on the right, was massive and over it was a huge iron bar in a socket.

“That’s the door to the cell they had us in,” said Frank, with conviction, as they stood grouped before it. “Brrr. We’d have had a fine chance to break that down.”

Leading the way and walking on the balls of his 119 feet, shoes in hand, Jack moved forward to the other door and had just laid his hand on the knob and was about to turn it, when he heard voices on the other side and the sound of footsteps mounting upward.

His mind worked lightning-fast in this crisis. It was the door of a stairway leading to the lower part of the house. Somebody was ascending it, not one man but several. They could have only one purpose. There was only one room up here on this upper floor—the cell. Therefore, whoever was coming up intended to visit them, thinking they still were in that room.

These thoughts flashed through Jack’s mind in less time than it took a man to mount a step. And, as quickly, he thought of a plan. Turning to his companions, he whispered:

“Quick, get back to the cupola stairs, Frank, because you’re nearest. Then run up and lower the trapdoor, and crouch outside until I call you. The rest of us can crouch down in this little space beyond the door, and we’ll be hidden by it when the door swings open.”

Frank was off on noiseless feet, while the other four huddled into the space indicated by Jack. By the time the men mounting the stairs swung the door inward, Frank had succeeded in gaining the cupola. The noise made by the rusted hinges, as the 120 trap was lowered was covered up by the voices of the men.

Fortunately, they did not close the stair door, but left it standing open, thus hiding the four behind it. There were three in the party, judging by the sound of voices and footsteps, and one at least carried a powerful electric flashlight.

“Thought I heard a scratching sound,” said a voice, which Jack and Bob recognized as that of Higginbotham. “But I guess it was made by mice. This old house is filled with them.”

A few steps farther along the party paused, and Jack, looking from his hiding place, saw three figures, shadowy and indistinct, before the huge door of the cell, upon which one man had thrown the light, while another was fumbling at the bar. The door swung open, and the three walked in.

“Come on,” whispered Jack.

Not waiting for the others, realizing it would be only a moment or two before their disappearance from the cell would be discovered, he leaped from hiding, tore down the little hall like a whirlwind, dashed against the great door and swung it into place. Bob, who was close at his heels, dropped the iron bar into place.

They were not a moment too soon. Shouts of amazement and alarm came from the room even as 121 the door was swinging shut. And hardly had Bob dropped the bar into the socket than those within threw themselves against the door. So tremendously thick and strong was the latter, however, that with its closing all sound from within was reduced to the merest whisper. As for trying to move it, as well attempt to push an elephant over by hand. This those within must have realized, for presently they desisted.

“Got ’em in their own cage,” said Jack, triumphantly. And, pulling from his pocket Tom Barnum’s little flashlight, he reassured himself the door really was barred, then mounting the stairway thumped on the trapdoor as a signal to Frank. The latter at once raised the door.

“Come on down, Frank,” said Jack. “There were three of them, and we penned them in the cell.”

Hastily he explained what had occurred.

“Now, fellows,” said he. “Let’s see who else is downstairs. Let’s see if we can’t get out of here, so we can radio Lieutenant Summers for help.”

“But how about leaving these chaps behind, Jack?” protested Bob. “They can get out the same way we did, and give the alarm. What we want to do is to bring Lieutenant Summers to the scene without letting these rascals get an inkling of what’s hanging over them. If Higginbotham and his companions 122 escape, he’ll start a search for us, and our plans will stand a fair chance of being spoiled.”

“You’re right, Bob,” said Jack. “But what can we do? They can’t get out of there in a minute. It will take them some time because, for one reason, they will be fearful of our lying in wait for them, perhaps. Meantime, we can be moving fast. Captain Folsom,” he added, deferring to the older man, “what do you think we ought to do?”

But the latter laid his sound arm on Jack’s shoulder.

“Listen,” he cautioned.

Muffled, but distinct, there came an outbreak of pistol shots, followed by shouts faintly heard.

“What I feared,” said Captain Folsom. “They are out on the roof already, and shooting and calling to attract help. Come. We have no time to lose.”

Fumbling his way along the dark hall toward the stair door, he said:

“Quick, Hampton, with your light. I can’t find the knob. Ah”—as the light of the little torch winked on—“that’s better.”

He pulled the door open, and started down the stairs, Jack at his shoulder and flashing the light ahead. The others crowded at their heels.