Part 30 (1/2)

”Which panel?” asked Bab, in an agony for fear he would not finish.

”The one with the knot hole in the right hand corner,” he added and fell back on the couch.

Bab tried to make him tell more, but his mind was clouded over and he had already forgotten she was there.

”Has he finished?” asked Stephen.

”Yes,” replied Bab, ”but come quickly. We have no time to lose. Jose is lying somewhere, dead or half dead, in the secret pa.s.sage.”

Too much excited and amazed to say good-night to the hermit, the callers rushed down the pa.s.sage, followed by the two servants. At the foot of the attic stairs they waited while John brought lights, and for the second time that day Bab climbed into the vast old attic.

”Thank fortune the part.i.tion is down,” exclaimed Stephen. ”I suppose Uncle Stephen forgot to slide it back, he was in such a hurry to get away from Jose.” Bab had explained the situation, to Stephen while they waited for the candles. ”Which panel did he say, Bab?”

”This must be it,” she answered; ”the panel in the right-hand corner that has a knot hole in it. Here is the knot hole all right. We are to press it, he said.”

They pressed, but nothing happened.

”Press the knot hole, why don't you?” suggested Bab.

One touch was enough. The panel opened and disclosed a long pa.s.sage cut apparently through the wall. There were several branch pa.s.sages leading off from the main one, marked with faded handwriting on slips of paper, one ”To the Cellar,” another ”To the Library” and finally the last one ”To the Right Wing.”

”This must be the one,” said Stephen, as they groped their way along single file. ”Be careful,” he called; ”there should be a flight of steps along here somewhere.”

Presently they came to the steps. Up through the dense blackness they could faintly hear a sound of moaning.

”All right, Jose, old fellow, we are coming to you,” cried Stephen, while Bab's heart beat so loud she could not trust herself to speak.

Groping their way down the narrow stairway, they came to a landing almost on a level with the ceilings of the first floor rooms. At the far end of the pa.s.sage they could hear a voice calling faintly.

”He probably fell the length of the steps, and dragged himself across,”

exclaimed Stephen, holding his lantern high above his head.

They found Jose stretched out by a narrow door opening directly into the right wing. There was a gash just above his temple which he himself had bound with his handkerchief and his leg appeared to be broken at the ankle.

”Jose, my poor boy,” cried Stephen, ”we have found you at last!”

Jose smiled weakly and fainted dead away.

The two men carried him back up the flight of steps, not daring to try the experiment of the pa.s.sage leading to the library.

”I suppose Uncle Stephen has known these pa.s.sages since he was a child,”

said Stephen in a low voice to Bab as they pa.s.sed through the attic, ”and when his attendant is asleep, no doubt he steals off and wanders about the house. I believe he has always had a mania that he was being pursued by the Italian boatman; and when Jose followed him, right on top of his meeting with you, it was too much for the old fellow.”

”He's a dear old man,” returned Bab, ”and how he must have suffered all these years; that is, whenever his memory returned.”

”And think of the hermit, too, who sacrificed his entire career for you, Miss, just because you never learned to swim.”

Bab smiled. ”If my Aunt Barbara had lived by the sea as I have, she would never have had to wait for boatmen and lovers to pull her out of the deep water. Swimming is as easy as walking to me.”