After an hour's idle search I returned to the end of

the corridor, repeated all my previous soundings, and,

I fear, indulged in language unbecoming a gentleman.

Then, in my blind anger, I found what patient search

had not disclosed.

I threw the hammer from me in a fit of temper; it

struck upon a large square in the cement floor which

gave forth a hollow sound. I was on my knees in an

instant, my fingers searching the cracks, and drawing

down close I could feel a current of air, slight but unmistakable,

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against my face.

The cement square, though exactly like the others in

the cellar floor, was evidently only a wooden imitation,

covering an opening beneath.

The block was fitted into its place with a nicety that

certified to the skill of the hand that had adjusted it.

I broke a blade of my pocket-knife trying to pry it

up, but in a moment I succeeded, and found it to be

in reality a trap-door, hinged to the substantial part

of the floor.

A current of cool fresh air, the same that had surprised

me in the night, struck my face as I lay flat and

peered into the opening. The lower passage was as black

as pitch, and I lighted a lantern I had brought with me,

found that wooden steps gave safe conduct below and

went down.

I stood erect in the passage and had several inches

to spare. It extended both ways, running back under

the foundations of the house. This lower passage cut

squarely under the park before the house and toward

the school wall. No wonder my grandfather had

brought foreign laborers who could speak no English

to work on his house! There was something delightful

in the largeness of his scheme, and I hurried through

the tunnel with a hundred questions tormenting my

brain.

The air grew steadily fresher, until, after I had gone

about two hundred yards, I reached a point where the

wind seemed to beat down on me from above. I put

up my hands and found two openings about two yards

apart, through which the air sucked steadily. I moved

out of the current with a chuckle in my throat and a

grin on my face. I had passed under the gate in the

school-wall, and I knew now why the piers that held it

had been built so high,-they were hollow and were the

means of sending fresh air into the tunnel.

I had traversed about twenty yards more when I felt

a slight vibration accompanied by a muffled roar, and

almost immediately came to a short wooden stair that

marked the end of the passage. I had no means of

judging directions, but I assumed I was somewhere near

the chapel in the school-grounds.

I climbed the steps, noting still the vibration, and

found a door that yielded readily to pressure. In a

moment I stood blinking, lantern in hand, in a well-lighted,

floored room. Overhead the tumult and thunder

of an organ explained the tremor and roar I had heard

below. I was in the crypt of St. Agatha's chapel. The

inside of the door by which I had entered was a part of

the wainscoting of the room, and the opening was wholly

covered with a map of the Holy Land.




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