Each was floated down as it was lowered, until twenty
great chests had been taken down. Then one more heavy and ponderous than
the rest was attached to the train, and a sloping board being placed from
the cellar floor to the bottom of the stream, the case was allowed to
slide down this until it rested on the bottom several feet beyond the
trap-door.
"There you see," the silversmith said, "even if they discovered the trap-
door and broke up the floor with sledgehammers, which would be no easy
matter, and probed the stream with lances, they would find nothing. As you
saw, there is a chain to the end of the last box, which is, as it were, an
anchor to the rest; this chain Jacques will now attach to a strong wire,
and fasten that to a ring below the water's edge, and a foot beyond the
trap-door, so that when danger is past we shall haul up the chain and
recover the cases one by one in the order in which they have been sent
down."
As soon as Jacques had fastened the wire to the ring he touched another
heavy spring under the sill, then pulled hard on the trap-door; this
gradually began to sink, and in a minute was in its place again. At the
same time the brick that had been pushed in above came out into its place
again, dust was then swept into the crack at the edge of the trapdoor, and
no one who had not seen the latter raised would have dreamt of its
existence.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MASTERS OF PARIS
The trap-door closed, the firewood was carried back again, and Guy went
upstairs, where he found that Dame Margaret, Agnes, and Charlie had
already put on their disguises.
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