She led me downstairs to the foot of the lowest staircase, which was rather broad, with high steps of stout old oak. "Look," she said, as she stepped away from me--I suppose to touch some secret spring--"this is the drawing-room." As she spoke, the two lowest stairs suddenly rolled back upon a sort of hinge, showing a little room, not much bigger than a couple of barrels, arranged underneath them. There were blankets and a mattress upon the floor of this little room, besides several packages like those which I had seen in the lugger. "You'll have to stay here, Jim," she said kindly. "But first of all I must get together Dick's papers and that. Come on and help me." Very soon she had gathered together a few papers and packets of tobacco and lace, which might have brought Dick into trouble. She laid these away in the recesses of the secret room, and told me to get inside, and go to sleep, and above all things to keep very still if people came along upon the stairs. I crept inside, rather frightened, and lay down among the blankets, to get some rest. Then Mrs Dick swung the two stairs back in to their place, a spring clicked, and I was a prisoner in the dark, shut up in the drawing-room. CHAPTER XVIII TRACKED It was very dark in the drawing-room under the stairs, and rather stuffy, for the only light and air admitted came through a little narrow crack, about six inches long, and half an inch across at its broadest. There was a strong smell of mice, among other smells; and the mice came scampering all over me before I had lain there long. I lay as still as I could, because of what Mrs Dick had said, and by-and-by I fell asleep in spite of the mice, and slept until it was dark. I was awakened by the rolling back of the stairs. As I started up, thinking that I was captured, I saw Mrs Dick standing over me with a candle in her hand. "Hush, Jim," she said. "Get out quickly. Don't ask any questions. Get out at once. You can't stay here any longer." "What has happened?" I asked. "Where is your husband? Has your husband come home?" "Yes," she said. "And you must go. They're coming after you. You were seen in the lugger with an axe in your hands. A man who passed you on the road after, saw you in the lugger. He was with the soldiers, and now he's given an information. Mary, the girl, heard it down at the magistrate's, where the inquest is. And so you must go. Besides, I want the drawing-room for my Dick. He has come back, and they'll be after him quite likely. He was seen, they say. So he must lie low till we've arranged the alibi, as they call it. Everybody has to have an alibi. And so my Dick'll have one, just to make sure. Mind your head against the stair." I crawled out, rubbing my eyes. "Where shall I go to?" I asked. "Oh," she said. "Until we find out, you had better go in the stable, in among the feed in the box, or covered up in the hay."