The light half-way down the stairs paused. "There is some way of opening that panel--"

"An' we gotta find it. All right, all right. But tell me how."

"I don't know whether it will be necessary to open it--from this side."

"What d'ya mean?"

"Use that thick skull of yours, Red. Doors swing two ways, don't they?

They can be used either to go in or to go out."

"Got it!" The thick voice was oily with flattering approval. "We can get out this way--"

"Smart work, Red. Did you think that out all by yourself?" asked the other contemptuously. "Yes, we can come out this way when"--his voice was sharp with purpose--"we are finished. Send one of these swampers down to the levee where the men are working. As long as this flood keeps rising we're safe. Then the other three of us will go for the house. We may be seen that way, but there's no use spending any more time here playing tick-tack-toe on that wood up there. We locate what we want, and if we're cornered we can come out through here to the bayou. Slick enough."

"Great stuff, Boss--" Red began. But the rest was m.u.f.fled, for Ricky and Val drew back into the room of the chains. There was only one thing to do now--reach Rupert and the others and prepare to meet these skulkers in the open. But before they had quite crossed the room Ricky came to grief. She caught her foot in one of those gruesome chains and stumbled forward, falling on her hands and knee. The noise of her fall echoed around the low chamber with betraying clamor.

A white light beat upon them as Val stooped to aid Ricky.

"Stop!" came the shout, but Val had only one thought, to dim that light.

He swung back his arm and flung his own flash straight at the other.

There was a grunt of pain and the light fell to the floor. With the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s it went out. Val pulled Ricky to her feet and threw her toward the door, forgetting everything but the wild panic which urged him out of that place of foul darkness. They bruised their hands against the brick as they felt for the opening, and then they were out in the other chamber.

"Val," Ricky clung to him, "I've got that little flash I keep under my pillow at night. Wait a minute until I get it out of my pocket. We can't find our way out of here without a light."

m.u.f.fled sounds from behind them suggested that their pursuers were on the trail even without light. After all, given time enough, it would be easy for them to feel their way out of the vaults. Val hustled Ricky on, taking his direction from one of the wine-casks he had b.u.mped into. And before he allowed her to hunt for her torch they stood in the first of the chambers.

The light she produced was poor and it flickered warningly. But it was good enough for them to see the dark opening which led to the outer world. They ducked into this just as the first of the other party came cursing into the open. At Val's orders, Ricky switched off the light and they crept along by the wall, one hand on its guiding surface.

But the way seemed longer than it had upon their entering. Surely they should have reached the garden entrance by now. And the surface underfoot remained level instead of slanting upward. Suddenly Ricky gave a little cry.

"We've taken the wrong pa.s.sage! There's only a blank wall in front of us!"

She was right. The torch showed a brick surface across their path, and Val remembered too late the second pa.s.sage out of the first chamber.

They must go back and hope to elude the others in the dark.

"They may have all gone out, thinking we were still ahead of them," he mused aloud.

"Well, it's got to be done," Ricky observed, "so we might as well do it."

Back they went along the unknown pa.s.sage. This appeared to run straight out from the first chamber. But why it had been fashioned and then walled up they had no way of knowing. Ricky's torch picked out the entrance at last.

"Wait," Val cautioned her, "we had better see how the land lies before we go out in the open."

They stood listening. Save for the constant drip, drip of water, there was no sound.

"I guess it's clear," he said.

"Wonder where all the water is coming from?" Ricky shivered.

"Down from the garden. Come on, I think it's safe to have a light now."

Ricky must have been holding the torch upward when she pressed the b.u.t.ton, for the round circle of light appeared on the supporting timbers above the door. They both looked up, fascinated for a moment. The old oak had been laid in a crisscross pattern, the best support possible in the days when the vaults had been made.

"How wet--" began Ricky.

Val cried out suddenly and struck at her. The blow sent her sprawling some three or four feet back in the pa.s.sage. There might be time yet to cover her body with his own, he planned desperately, before--

The sound of slipping earth was all about them as Val flung himself toward Ricky. As he thrust blindly at her body, rolling her back farther into the tunnel, he felt the first clod strike full upon his shoulder.

Ricky's complaining whimper was the last thing he heard clearly. For in the dark was the crash of breaking timber.

He was felled by a stroke across the upper arm, and then came a chill darkness in which he was utterly swallowed up.

CHAPTER XV

PIECES OF EIGHT--RALESTONES' FATE!

Through the dull roaring which filled his ears Val heard a sharp call:

"Val! Val, where are you? Val!"

He stared up into utter blackness.

"Val!"

"Here, Ricky!" But that thin thread of a whisper surely didn't belong to him. He tried again and achieved a sort of croak. Something moved behind him and there was an answering rattle of falling clods.

"Val, I'm afraid to move," her voice wavered unsteadily. "It seems to be falling yet. Where are you?"

The boy tried to investigate, only to find himself more securely fastened than if he had been scientifically bound. And now that the mists had cleared from him, his spine and back felt a sharp pain to which he was no stranger. From his breast-bone down he was held as if in a vise.

"Are you hurt, Ricky?" He formed the words slowly. Every breath he drew thrust a red-hot knife between his ribs. He turned his head toward her, pillowing his cheek on the gritty clay.

"No. But where are you, Val? Can't you come to me?"

"Sorry. Un--unavoidably detained," he gasped. "Don't try any crawling or the rest may come down on us."

"Val! What's the matter? Are you hurt?" Her questions cut sharply through the darkness.

"Banged up a little. No"--he heard the rustle which betrayed her movements--"don't try to come to me--Please, Ricky!"

But with infinite caution she came, until her brother felt the edge of her cape against his face. Then her questing hand touched his throat and slid downward to his shoulders.

"Val!" He knew what horror colored that cry as she came upon what imprisoned him.

"It's all right, Ricky. I'm just pinned in. If I don't try to move I'm safe." Quickly he tried to rea.s.sure her.