"Gome on, back to the well now.
Dick will have to come up there, because he won't be able to get out of the entrance."
They all went to the well.
Dick had removed the old wooden cover, and it was lying on the ground.
The children leaned over the hole of the well and waited anxiously.
What was Dick doing?
They could hear nothing from the well and they longed to know what was happening.
There was plenty happening down below!
The two men, and another, had gone down into the dungeons, expecting, of course, to find Julian, George and the dog still locked up in the store-room with the ingots.
They passed the well-shaft not guessing that an excited small boy was hidden there, ready to slip out of the opening as soon as they had passed.
Dick heard them pass.
He slipped out of the well-opening and followed behind quietly, his feet making no sound.
He could see the beams made by the men's powerful torches, and with his heart thumping loudly he crept along the smelly old passages, between great caves, until the men turned into the wide passage where the storecave lay.
"Here it is," Dick heard one of the men say, as he flashed his torch on to the great door.
"The gold's in there— so are the kids!"
The man unbolted the door at top and bottom.
Dick was glad that he had slipped along to bolt the door, for if he hadn't done that before the men had come they would have known that Julian and George had escaped, and would have been on their guard.
The man opened the door and stepped inside.
The second man followed him.
Dick crept as close as he dared, waiting for the third man to go in too.
Then he meant to slam the door and bolt it!
The first man swung his torch round and gave a loud exclamation.
"The children are gone!
How strange!
Where are they?"
Two of the men were now in the cave— and the third stepped in at that moment.
Dick darted forward and slammed the door.
It made a crash that went echoing round and round the caves and passages.
Dick fumbled with the bolts, his hand trembling.
They were stiff and rusty.
The boy found it hard to shoot them home in their sockets.
And meanwhile the men were not idle!
As soon as they heard the door slam they spun round.
The third man put his shoulder to the door at once and heaved hard.
Dick had just got one of the bolts almost into its socket.
Then all three men forced their strength against the door, and the bolt gave way!
Dick stared in horror. The door was opening!
He turned and fled down the dark passage.
The men flashed their torches on and saw him.
They went after the boy at top speed.
Dick fled to the well-shaft.
Fortunately the opening was on the opposite side, and he could clamber into it without being seen in the light of the torches.
The boy only just had time to squeeze through into the shaft before the three men came running by.
Not one of them guessed that the runaway was squeezed into the well-shaft they passed!
Indeed, the men did not even know that there was a well there.
Trembling from head to foot, Dick began to climb the rope he had left dangling from the rungs of the iron ladder.
He undid it when he reached the ladder itself, for he thought that perhaps the men might discover the old well and try to climb up later.
They would not be able to do that if there was no rope dangling down.
The boy climbed up the ladder quickly, and squeezed round the stone slab near the top.
The other children were there, waiting for him.