The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards Part 14

Tom complied, and it was seen Bob had received a nasty wound which had laid the scalp open on the left side three or four inches. The cut had bled profusely. With the light to work by, Frank, who like his companions was proficient in first aid treatment of injuries, shredded a piece of the white shirting for lint, made a compress, and then bound the whole thing tightly. Jack's blow was not so serious, but Frank bound his head, too.

None of the boys nor Tom Barnum ever had been inside the Brownell house before, although all were more or less familiar with its outer appearance. Tom now made a careless survey of the room by the aid of his flashlight. He would flash it on for only a moment, as he moved about soundlessly, having removed his shoes, and he so hid the rays under his coat that very little light showed. This he did in order to prevent as much as possible any rays falling through cracks in the walls or floor, and betraying their activity.

The room, Tom found on completing his survey, was without windows and possessed of only one door, a ma.s.sive oaken affair with great strap iron hinges and set in a ponderous frame. From the slope of the ceiling at the sides, he judged the room was under the roof. Walls and ceiling were plastered.

Not a sound had penetrated into the room from the outside, or from the other parts of the house, and at this all had marveled earlier. Tom's report of the survey supplied an answer to the mystery. There was little chance for sound to penetrate within.

"But a room without windows?" said Jack. "How, then, does it happen the air is fresh?"

"There's a draught from up above," answered Tom. "I cain't see any skylight, but there may be an air port back in the angle of the roof tree. Say, Mister Jack, this room gives me the creeps," he added, his voice involuntarily taking on an awed tone. "A room without windows.

An' over in the far corner I found some rusted iron rings fastened to big staples set deep into a post in the wall."

"What, Tom? You don't say."

"Yes, siree. Ol' Brownell, the pirate whaler's, been dead for a long time. But there's queer stories still around these parts about him an'

his house; stories not only 'bout how he was killed finally by the men as he'd cheated, but also 'bout a mysterious figure in white that used to be seen on the roof, an' yells heard comin' from here. You know what?" He leaned closer, and still further lowered his voice. "I'll bet this room was a cell fer some crazy body an' ol' Brownell kept him or her chained up when violent. Some people still say, you know, as how that white figure wa'n't a ghost but the ol' man's crazy wife."

"Brrr."

Frank shivered in mock terror and grinned in the darkness. "Some place to be," he added.

Nevertheless, light though he made of Tom's story, the hour, the circ.u.mstances in which they found themselves, the mystery of the windowless room, all combined to inspire in him an uncanny feeling, as if unseen hands were reaching for him from the dark.

"Getting out is still our first consideration," Captain Folsom said.

"What Barnum reports makes it look difficult, but let's see. Have you tried the door? Is it locked?"

"Tried it?" said Tom. "Ain't possible. There ain't neither handle nor k.n.o.b inside, to pull on. No lock nor keyhole in it, neither. Must be barred on the outside. That's another reason for thinkin' it was built for a prison cell."

"And if the old pirate kept a crazy woman in here when she was violent," supplied Jack, "you can bet he built the walls thick to smother her yells. That's why we hear no sounds."

There was silence for a time. Each was busy with his own thoughts. The prospect, indeed, looked dark. How could they escape from a cell such as this?

Jack was first to break the silence.

"Look here," said he, "fresh air is admitted into this room in some fashion, and, probably, as Tom surmised, through an air port in the ceiling. It may be the old pirate even built a trap door in the roof.

Obviously, anyhow, our best and, in fact, our only chance to escape lies through the roof. It may be possible to break through there, whereas we couldn't get through walls or the door. Let's investigate."

Eager whispers approved the proposal.

"Come on, Tom," Jack continued, "we'll investigate that angle in the roof tree. You brace yourself against the wall, and I'll stand on your shoulders."

The two moved away with the others close behind them. Jack mounted on Tom Barnum's shoulders. He found the ceiling sloped up to a lofty peak. Running his hands up each slope, he could discern no irregularity. But, suddenly, nearing the top, where the sides drew together, he felt a strong draught of air on his hands.

Their positions at the time were this: Tom was leaning against the end wall, with Jack on his shoulders, and facing the wall. The ceiling sloped upward on each side and it was up these slopes Jack had been running his hands. Tall as he was, and standing upright, his head still was some feet from the roof tree above, where the sloping sidewalls joined.

When he felt the inrush of air on his hands, which were then above his head, Jack reached forward. He encountered no wall at all. But, about a foot above his head, instead, his fingers encountered the edge of an opening in the end wall and under the roof tree. Trembling with excitement, he felt along the edge from side wall to side wall, and found the opening was more than two feet across.

Not a word had been said, meanwhile, not a whisper uttered. Now, leaning down, and in a voice barely audible, Jack whispered to the anxious group at his feet:

"Fellows, there's an opening up here under the roof tree. I can't tell yet what it is, but if you hand me up Tom's flashlight I'll have a look at it."

Frank pa.s.sed the little electric torch upward, flashing it once to aid Jack in locating it in the darkness. Again Jack straightened up carefully. Holding the flat little flashlight between his teeth, he gripped the edge of the opening and chinned himself. Then, holding on with one hand, with the other he manipulated the flashlight.

One glance was sufficient. It revealed a tunnel-like pa.s.sage under the roof tree. This pa.s.sage was triangular in shape, with the beam of the roof tree at the peak, the sloping, unplastered sides of the roof and a flat, solid floor. It extended some distance forward, apparently, for the rays of the flashlight did not reveal any wall across it. The floor was solidly planked, probably a yard wide, instead of two feet-plus of Jack's original estimate, and the height from floor to roof tree was all of two and a half feet.

Laying down the flashlight, Jack drew himself over the edge of the opening. Then, moving cautiously forward in the darkness, not daring to throw the light ahead of him for fear of betraying his presence, he crawled on hands and knees. The draught of air through the pa.s.sageway was strong, and he had not proceeded far before he saw ahead faint bars across the pa.s.sage, not of light but of lesser darkness.

He decided there was some opening at the end of the pa.s.sage, but could not imagine what it might be. When he came up to it, however, the solution was simple. Immediately under the peak of the roof tree, in a side wall, was an opening in which was set a slatted shutter. This admitted air, yet kept rain from beating in.

And in a flash, Jack realized to what ingenious lengths the original owner of the house had gone in order to provide for his prisoner a cell that would be virtually soundproof, yet have a supply of fresh air. So high, too, was the opening of the pa.s.sage in the cell that one person could not reach it unaided.

Jubilant at his discovery and with a plan for putting it to use as a means of escape, Jack, unable to turn about in the narrow pa.s.sage, worked his way backward until the projection of his feet into emptiness warned him he had reached the room. Then he let himself down and, when once more with his companions, explained the nature of his discovery.

"We can lift that shutter out," he added, "and swing upward to the roof tree. There is a cupola, an old-fashioned cupola, on this house, as I remember it. Once we are on the roof, we can work our way to that cupola and probably find a trapdoor leading down into the house. If we decide that is too dangerous, we may be able to slide down the gutters. Anyhow, once we are in the outer air and on the roof, we'll be in a better position than here. Come on. I'll go up first, and then help Captain Folsom up. Do the rest of you follow, and, as Frank is the lightest, he ought to come last. The last man will have to be pulled up with our belts, as he will have n.o.body to stand on."

CHAPTER XIII

THE TABLES TURNED

Negotiation of the entrance of all into the pa.s.sageway 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 pa.s.sageway and place it noiselessly on the floor, was a comparatively simple matter.

Whispering to Captain Folsom, next in line, to pa.s.s the word along that all should stay in the pa.s.sageway 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 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."

Working rapidly, Jack managed to remove a patch of shingles over a s.p.a.ce 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 bal.u.s.trade around it. Jack climbed up this bal.u.s.trade, and Captain Folsom, with Bob aiding him from the rear and Jack giving him a hand in front, followed.

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.