A round circle of light shone plainly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. Ricky's breath was warm on Val's cheek and she moved with a faint crackling of her cape which sounded as loud as a thunderclap in his ears. "How're we gonna do it without bustin' the wall down?" demanded an aggrieved voice from the top of the stairs. "There ain't no knob, no handle, no nothin' to work it from this side. And these guys what stored their stuff here in the boot-leggin' days never got into the house." "The boy got through, didn't he?" Val knew that voice, the Boss of the swamp meeting. "Well, if he did, we can." "Lissen, Boss, it's a secret, ain't it? An' we gotta know how it works before we can work it. An' lissen here, you swamp bum, you keep outta my way--see? I don't care if you were one of Mike Flanigan's boys; that don't cut no ice with me." This truculent warning must have been addressed to an unseen companion on the same stair level. The listeners below heard a faint sound which might have marked a collision and then the hiss of swamp French spoken hurriedly and angrily. "What're you gonna do now, Boss?" The light half-way down the stairs paused. "There is some way of opening that panel--" "An' we gotta find it. All right, all right. But tell me how." "I don't know whether it will be necessary to open it--from this side." "What d'ya mean?" "Use that thick skull of yours, Red. Doors swing two ways, don't they? They can be used either to go in or to go out." "Got it!" The thick voice was oily with flattering approval. "We can get out this way--" "Smart work, Red. Did you think that out all by yourself?" asked the other contemptuously. "Yes, we can come out this way when"--his voice was sharp with purpose--"we are finished. Send one of these swampers down to the levee where the men are working. As long as this flood keeps rising we're safe. Then the other three of us will go for the house. We may be seen that way, but there's no use spending any more time here playing tick-tack-toe on that wood up there. We locate what we want, and if we're cornered we can come out through here to the bayou. Slick enough." "Great stuff, Boss--" Red began. But the rest was muffled, for Ricky and Val drew back into the room of the chains. There was only one thing to do now--reach Rupert and the others and prepare to meet these skulkers in the open. But before they had quite crossed the room Ricky came to grief. She caught her foot in one of those gruesome chains and stumbled forward, falling on her hands and knee. The noise of her fall echoed around the low chamber with betraying clamor. A white light beat upon them as Val stooped to aid Ricky.