With some difficulty he squeezed himself through the open panel, and took a half-kneeling, half-sitting posture within.

There he struck a match, and it was a most unfortunate thing that in striking, the box being half open, he set fire to all the matches, and was half smothered in the atrocious stink of phosphorus which resulted.

One match burned clear on the floor of the cavity, and, rubbing his eyes, Racksole picked it up, and looked down the hole which he had previously descried.
It was a hole apparently bottomless, and about eighteen inches square.
The curious part about the hole was that a rope-ladder hung down it.
When he saw that rope-ladder Racksole smiled the smile of a happy man.
The match went out.
Should he make a long journey, perhaps to some distant corner of the hotel, for a fresh box of matches, or should he attempt to descend that rope-ladder in the dark?
He decided on the latter course, and he was the more strongly moved thereto as he could now distinguish a faint, a very faint tinge of light at the bottom of the hole.
With infinite care he compressed himself into the well-like hole, and descended the latter.

At length he arrived on firm ground, perspiring, but quite safe and quite excited.

He saw now that the tinge of light came through a small hole in the wood.