"I give you my word I never meant to use it! I only wanted to see if I remembered the trick of it. You twist one of the hounds on the stone coat of arms, and the door opens behind the logs. Well, I did it, and heard the door clink open; I hadn't tried it since I was a kid, and I thought, By golly, what a lark to go through the underground tunnel and see if the other end's still workable! I guess I had some vague notion of us using it for an escape route, if things got too hot for us in the castle. So I went in, and closed the door behind me. "I bumbled along the tunnel--how I recalled the feel of those damp, rough bricks!--and came after three hundred feet to the other end, where a hidden trap leads to a summerhouse. I lifted it cautiously, still with no idea of leaving the tunnel, and felt the breeze on my face; and I knew then that I had to go on. I'd come this far and suddenly I knew I had to keep travelin' till I got to Birmingham and Arold. So I slipped out and cut straight through the woods till I came to the road. My lack of sight was no handicap, because there's not a chunk of turf within five miles o' the castle I don't know by its first name. * * * * * "After I hit the road it was easy. I just groped my way for a few hours till I knew by the sound of the farm dogs that I'd come to Granny Moore's place. After running into a fence and a cart or two, I found the door and banged on it; explained to Granny that I had to get to Birmingham as quick as possible; and she, bless her staunch old soul, detailed her youngest boy (a lad of forty-nine) to take me there, without so much as a single query as to my reasons--and that's all. I found Arold that afternoon at Old Mag's." "To think I was standing in the hall when you went through the door in the fireplace," I said. "God! I thought it was ghosts I heard." "I'd have left a note, or come back to tell you, but I was all carried away with the spirit of rollicking adventure and looniness," said Geoff, filling his pipe. "I expect I gave you some bad hours. I'm sorry." "Forgiven," gruffed the Colonel. "You saved our bacon." "And the world," said Marion quietly. "Yes, the world! The jolly old human race, that didn't even know it was in danger, and wouldn't believe it now if we told it! Hell's sweet bells, it's hard for _me_ to believe!" Geoff laughed. "Did we really pit ourselves against ten thousand fantastic beasts, and drive them from our dimension by a colossal bluff? Or did we dream a long horrid dream, we seven strange crusaders?" "I begin already to doubt my memory," answered Doctor John. "I was never cut out for a cavalier, wooing weird adventures. I'm a solid citizen. I'm going back to my practice on the steamers." "When?" I asked. "Next week." Now the present had intruded in our talk, and the future. "What will you do, Colonel?"