He proceeded onward in the dark passage for some distance, then stopped to listen. No sound coming from the door he had closed, he decided that the officers were satisfied the noise had been of the rats' making. He sheathed his broken sword, having retained that and his stick in his fall, and went forward, hoping to find a habitable place of waiting. Soon the passage widened into a kind of subterranean room, one side of which admitted light. Going to this side, Harry stopped short at the verge of a well, on whose circumference the subterranean chamber abutted. The light came from the well's top, which was about ten feet above the low roof of the underground room, the passage from the cellar being on a descent. In this artificial cave were wooden chests, casks, and covered earthen vessels, these contents proclaiming the place a secret storage-room designed for use in siege or in military occupation. Harry waited here a while that seemed half a day, then returned through the passage to the door, intending to return to the cellar. He listened at the door, found all quiet beyond, and made to push open the door. It would not move. From the feel of the resistance, he perceived that the bolt had been pushed home again--as indeed it had, by the steward, who had noticed it while tapping the barrel, and had imputed its being drawn to some former carelessness of his own. Peyton, finding himself thus barred into the subterranean regions, was in a quandary. Any alarm he might attempt, by shouting or pounding, might not be heard, or, if heard, might reach some tarrying British. In due time, Elizabeth would doubtless have him looked for in the closet and then in the cellar, but, on his not being found there, would suppose he had left the cellar by one of the other stairways. Thus he could little hope to be sought for in his prison. Williams might at any time have occasion to visit the secret storeroom, but, on the other hand, he might not have such occasion for weeks. Harry groped back to the cave, and sought some way of escape by the well, but found none. He then examined the cave more closely, and came finally on another passage than that by which he had entered. He followed this for what seemed an interminable length. At last, it closed up in front of him. He tested the barrier of raw earth with his hands, felt a great round stone projecting therefrom, pushed this stone in vain, then clasped it with both arms and pulled. It gave, and presently fell to the ground at his feet, leaving an aperture two feet across, which let in light. He crawled the short length of this, and breathed the open air in a small thicket on the sloping bank of the Hudson.[8] He crept to the thicket's edge, and saw, in the sunset light, the river before him; on the river, a British war-vessel; on the vessel, some naval officers, one of whom was looking, with languid preoccupation, straight at the thicket from which Harry gazed. CHAPTER IX. THE CONFESSION.