On the first floor the leader paused. The attempt to force the firmly hooked shutter had ceased, and no new form of attack was for the moment in evidence. Anglin had removed his cowhide boots, and, with velvet tread, then advanced the entire length of the long hall, motioning those behind him to remain where they were. He was back again in less than five minutes, and whispered: "The house, I believe, is completely surrounded. They are waiting for daylight, I suppose, to cinch some sure thing, the nature of which they are not quite certain. If Roque is along and thought I was inside, axes would have been working before this." "They will find a lot here at daylight," chuckled Fred--"a lot of dust." The party silently made their way through a side passage to what appeared to have been intended as the dining and cooking domain. Gervais had assumed the duties of guide, and he showed thorough acquaintance with the premises by first producing a dark lantern from a cupboard, and then moving directly to the black mouth of a steeply inclined flight of stone steps descending far below the level. The spacious cellar was divided into sections by partitions of solid brick. But it was at the center of the foundation wall on the west where Gervais halted. "Give me a leg up." Fred gave his comrade the required lift, and Gervais secured a hand-grip on a big drain pipe that curved into the wall. He gave the pipe a strong-arm-twist, and the bull's-eye shine of the lantern revealed an aperture in the masonry, into which the climber squirmed. Hardly had his feet disappeared, when he had turned about with his head out of the hole in the wall and a hand down to help the next comer to scale the space between the floor and the dislocated pipe. Billy was given the hoist and crawled over the prostrate Gervais into the narrow passage above; Henri quickly followed, then Anglin, and finally Fred, who lent aid in pulling the pipe back to its moorings. "'Snug as a bug in a rug,'" quoted Billy, who was really enjoying this method of getting out of a tight place, even though getting into another. However, the rounded and cemented passage did not squeeze enough to be uncomfortable, and there was steady draught of fresh air coming from somewhere further ahead. "The good man from whom you leased this property six months ago hardly counted this as one of the improvements you agreed to make," remarked Anglin as they started to wriggle through the drain. Gervais laughed. "I didn't do anything to the pipe but what had to be done, and 'a stitch in time saves nine.'" "It is likely to save three that I know of," grunted Fred. "You can always count on Gervais to think for the future." The man so complimented by his chief said nothing, saving his energy for the vigorous use of hands and knees necessary to make progress in the smooth channel.