"I know my way! Come!" she breathed, and he followed into the pitchy darkness.
How far they had progressed he had no idea, when she halted and drew him close to her.
"I’ve lost my way; I thought I could find the main corridor. Have you a match?"
He pulled it from his pocket and drew his pistol also. Then he snapped on the light.
For a moment the girl stood dazzled and perplexed, evidently unfamiliar with what she was gazing at, bewildered.
But Warner knew. There, in front of him, stood the great tun, swung open like a gate, and between it and the next cask ran the secret alley blocked by the door from which Wildresse had driven Asticot and Squelette.
"I know the way now!" he said. "But we’ll have to pass through the café——"
He sprang back with the words on his lips as the door opened violently and Wildresse lurched out, followed by Asticot and another man.
But the glare of the torch in their eyes checked them and they recoiled, stumbling over each other in the narrow doorway.
Step by step Warner backed away, keeping Philippa behind him and focussing the blinding light on the men huddled in the doorway.
"Who are you?" demanded Wildresse hoarsely. "What are you doing in my cellar?"
He made a motion toward his breast pocket; Asticot was quicker, and he fired full at the flashlight which Warner was holding wide of himself and Philippa.
The bullet struck the light; startling darkness buried them, instantly all a-flicker again with pistol flashes.
"The grating again! Can you find it, Philippa?" he whispered.
She turned her head as she retreated, caught a glimpse of the faint spot of starlight behind, took his hand and drew him around.
Evidently Wildresse dared not use any light; his friends were shooting wildly and at hazard for general results; the racket in the vaulted place was deafening; but the flashes from their own pistols must have obscured their vision, for if they could have distinguished the far, pale spot of light under the manhole, they evidently did not see the dim figures crouching there.
Warner reached up, grasped the iron bars, lifted them, swung them open. Then he dragged himself up and over, and, flat on the grass, held down his arms for Philippa.
Beside him, panting on the grass, she lay flat under the dim luster of the stars, while they searched the dusk for any sign of the two men who had landed from the rowboat.