The door was closed.

Prince Aribert turned the knob, but he could not open it.
'It's locked,' he said.

'Evidently they know we're here.' 'Nonsense,' said Racksole brusquely; 'how can they know ?' And, taking hold of the knob, he violently shook the door, and it opened.

'I told you it wasn't locked,' he added, and this small success of opening the door seemed to steady the man.

It was a curious psychological effect, this terrorizing (for it amounted to that) of two courageous full-grown men by the mere apparition of a helpless creature in a cellar.