"Where's the terrier?" screeched another.
But their host of the mighty girth - a man like a soda-water bottle,
from my one glimpse of him on his feet - seemed sobered rather than
stunned by the crack on that head of his. We heard his fine voice
no more, but we could feel him straining every thew against the
trap-door upon which Raffles and I stood side by side. At least I
thought Raffles was standing, until he asked me to strike a light,
when I found him on his knees instead of on his feet, busy screwing
down the trap-door with his gimlet. He carried three or four gimlets
for wedging doors, and he drove them all. in to the handle, while I
pulled at the stanchion and pushed with my feet.
But the upward pressure ceased before our efforts. We heard the
ladder creak again under a ponderous and slow descent; and we stood
upright in the dim flicker of a candle-end that I had lit and left
burning on the floor. Raffles glanced at the four small windows in
turn and then at me. "Is there any way out at all.?" he whispered,
as no other being would or could have whispered to the man who had
led him into such a trap.
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