"I did leave it open, chief, but the door must have fallen back of its own weight." "Impossible! We should have heard the sound." "Then? . . ." "Then . . . then . . . I don't know . . ." He went up to the door. "Let's see, . . . there's a key . . . does it turn? . . . Yes, it turns. But there seems to be a bolt on the other side." "Who can have fastened it?" "They, of course! Behind our backs! . . . Perhaps they have another tunnel that runs above this one, alongside of it . . . or else they were waiting in that empty house. . . . In any case, we're caught in a trap. . . ." He grew angry with the lock, thrust his knife into the chink of the door, tried every means and then, in a moment of weariness, said: "There's nothing to be done!" "What, chief, nothing to be done? In that case, we're diddled!" "I dare say!" said M. Lenormand. . . . They returned to the other door and came back again to the first. Both were solid, made of hard wood, strengthened with cross-beams . . . in short, indestructible. "We should want a hatchet," said the chief of the detective-service, "or at the very least, a serious implement . . . a knife even, with which we might try to cut away the place where the bolt is most likely to be . . . and we have nothing. . . ." He was seized with a sudden fit of rage and flung himself upon the obstacle, as though he hoped to do away with it. Then, powerless, beaten, he said to Gourel: "Listen, we'll look into this in an hour or two. . . . I am tired out. . . . I am going to sleep. . . . Keep watch so long . . . and if they come and attack us . . ." "Ah, if they come, we shall be saved, chief!" cried Gourel, who would have been relieved by a fight, however great the odds. M. Lenormand lay down on the ground. In a minute, he was asleep. * * * * * When he woke up, he remained for some seconds undecided, not understanding; and he also asked himself what sort of pain it was that was tormenting him: "Gourel!" he called. "Come! Gourel!" Obtaining no reply, he pressed the spring of his lantern and saw Gourel lying beside him, sound asleep. "What on earth can this pain be?" he thought. "Regular twitchings. . . . Oh, why, of course, I am hungry, that's all. . . . I'm starving! What can the time be?" His watch marked twenty minutes past seven, but he remembered that he had not wound it up. Gourel's watch was not going either. Gourel had awoke under the action of the same inward pangs, which made them think that the breakfast-hour must be long past and that they had already slept for a part of the day. "My legs are quite numbed," said Gourel, "and my feet feel as if they were on ice. What a funny sensation!" He bent down to rub them and went on: "Why, it's not on ice that my feet were, but in water. . . . Look, chief . . . there's a regular pool near the first door. . . ." "Soaked through," M. Lenormand replied. "We'll go back to the second door; you can dry yourself . . ."