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Rh don't see that it matters very much now. It's so long ago, you know."

"Yes," went on Colin, "but I should like to find out, all the same. I have often thought of it before—of the underground passage, I mean. Most castles in Scotland have underground passages somewhere, and Castle Leslie can scarcely be an exception. At one time I thought I had found a way into this one." He pointed up to the top of the ivy-covered wall. "You see the place where that buttress ends?" he asked. The colonel nodded. "Well, last spring a jenny wren built her nest up there. I wanted to get it. I climbed up from the inside of the ruin, and crept along the top of the wall. I had got as far as where the nest was when, leaning over to reach it, I felt one of the big stones give way beneath me. I held on by the ivy; but the loosened stone fell with a crash to the ground. I didn't look where it fell. I was only thinking of how I should get down with the nest. But a day or two afterwards I was coming through the place that used to be the guard-room in the old days, before Hawley's dragoons burnt this part of the castle down, and I saw the stone lying there. It wasn't smashed; but it had smashed the flagstone that it had fallen upon. Some parts of the flagstone had dropped through, right down into a sort of black well. I did not try to open the well; although I should have done if any other boys had been here to help me. But this morning I thought of it again in connection with your story——"

"I understand," interrupted the colonel. "You think it may have been down there that old Sir John Leslie hid the arms for the rebels, eh? Well, let me see this fancied entrance to the subterranean passage. Where is it?"

"It's through here," said Colin. And he led his companion through the postern gate into a large roofless room.

In one of the corners there was a heap of garden refuse, covered by a thin layer of melting snow. Colin