"If we cannot find it, we have tools wherewith we can dig a way out," said the colonel, indicating our weapons, which we one and all, save the wounded men, retained. "I'll warrant the surface of the ground is not ten feet above our heads." "If the passage leads under the Downs, it may be five hundred," exclaimed Ralph moodily. "Talking will not find it, so let's to work," said the colonel cheerfully, and taking a torch from one of the men, he began to retrace his footsteps, looking both at the sides and roof of the tunnel as he went. "The air seems fresh enough," he said. "So we need not fear suffocation for a while, at any rate. But there's no sign of an opening, though your father expressly mentioned 'twas easy enough to find." At length he returned to the end of the passage, where we had remained, endeavouring to dislodge some of the flints with a stout knife, but without avail. The man who had built that passage must have meant it to last, for the cement was as hard as the flints. "Let me mount on your shoulders," said I to one of the men, a tall, broad-shouldered farmer from Compton. From this height I could examine the roof, which at no part was more than seven feet in height, though my face was almost touching the jagged flints of the crown of the arch. In one place it looked as if a crack existed in the cement, and taking the knife from its owner's hands, I scratched the point against the supposed joint in the stonework. My efforts met with no success, but just at that moment the knife slipped from my hand and fell to the ground. A shout from Firestone caused me to look down in alarm. "Has it struck your foot?" I asked anxiously. "Foot? No," he replied. "Fool that I was not to have thought of it before. Look at the knife!" The steel was deeply embedded in the floor. I descended from the farmer's shoulders, and stood by while the colonel directed a man to remove the thick deposit of dust that everywhere covered the floor of the tunnel. This done, a square of wood with a rusted iron ring in its centre was laid bare. "'Tis evident we must go down ere we go up!" remarked Firestone, with a laugh. "Now--pull together!" Accordingly, the big farmer and another strong yeoman tugged at the ring, but the next instant they were sent crashing into the stone wall of the tunnel, which alone saved them from falling backwards, with the rusted iron held firmly in their hands. "It has broken off short we must be careful lest we are unable to make use of what is left in the ring," cautioned the colonel, and directing the men to secure a better grip of the fragment of iron that still remained in the slab by means of a strip of cloth, while others used their weapons as levers, the barrier between us and freedom was removed. Another short flight of steps, followed by a passage less than twenty feet in length and lower than the one we had just traversed, terminating in a spiral staircase.