UNDER THE EARTH. 
173 
an unaccountable sense of aversion and distrust regarding 
that cellar. Looking around the circle, they read the 
same expression in one another's face. 
" Nonsense ! " exclaimed Dick, answering the look. 
What are we afraid of ? Chloe's talk has made geese 
of us. It is dark, though ! " 
The clouds grew blacker, and the wind steadily rose in 
fury, until it fairly lashed the little peninsula and the 
frothing waters of the river beyond. The lieutenant 
drew a small pocket-lantern from his coat, unfolded it, 
and lighted the candle. Contrary to his expectations, 
the yellow light, mingling with the cold gray gloom from 
outside, but increased the eeriness of the situation and 
the unpleasant sensations they had all felt. 
As he hesitated what to do next, he struck his heel 
sharply again on the groove in the slab, where the ring 
had been. The blow broke the stone squarely in the cen- 
tre, and the two pieces fell in with a crash. The stone 
itself was not over an inch thick, and was merely a fire- 
proof protection for an under-layer of planking, now 
worm-eaten and decayed. 
A peculiar musty scent arose from the hole as they 
bent over it. Dick remembered having somewhere caught 
the same odor : at first he could not recall it ; then he 
remembered that it was at the reopening of a long dis- 
used tomb, which he had watched with boyish curiosity 
and awe twenty-five years before. The recollection was 
not a pleasant one, and for a moment the United States 
