Basil and the Pygmy Cats
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Eve Titus
Illustrated by Paul Galdone

(c) 1971 by Eve Titus and Paul Galdone

4
The Tunnel
-------------

No sooner had the sound of Ratigan's steps died away than Basil whipped out his magnifying glass and began exploring the dungeon, candle held high. The floor and the walls were of large blocks of stone, and he inspected them carefully.

I stretched out on some straw in the corner, but just as my eyes closed, Basil called, "Dawson! There's a message scratched on the wall, high above my head. Let me stand on your shoulders."

Yawning, I obliged. Basil copied the message in his notebook and jumped down. He studied the writing for a few minutes, then exclaimed aloud in satisfaction. Thrusting the message under my nose, he commanded me to read it.

I stared at this puzzling jumble of letters:

TJYUI SPX GPVSUI TUPOF UVOOFM

"My mind's blank," said I. "What does it mean?"

"I'll give you a hint," replied Basil. "It's in English, the second language of Bengistan, and it's in an alphabet code."

I sighed. "It might as well be Martian!"

"Heavens, Dawson! It's a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet are moved to the left. Here's my notebook--print the alphabet under the message and decipher it."

I obeyed and found myself studying the following:

TJYUI SPX GPVSUI TUPOF UVOOFM
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ


"Let me see," said I. "T moved to the left becomes S, J becomes I, Y becomes X, U becomes T, and I is now H. By Jove! TJYUI stands for SIXTH!"

"Elementary, my dear doctor. Pray continue."

I quickly decoded the rest and read the message:

SIXTH ROW FOURTH STONE TUNNEL

Highly excited, we began counting stones. The fourth stone in the sixth row was loose! We pried it up, using my walking-stick as a lever. Basil dropped down into the tunnel, then steadied the stone as I jumped. We eased it back into place to hide our way of escape.

Then we began to crawl along, taking turns at holding the candle. The ceiling of the tunnel was so low that we could hardly lift our heads for fear of bumping ourselves. Several times the candle sputtered and went out, leaving us in complete darkness. I must confess to feelings of panic until the candle was lit again, for the air was foul and oppressive, and I kept asking myself--what if the tunnel ends in a



blank wall? Twice I thought of returning to the dungeon, but Basil continued to creep forward, and I followed his brave example.

Suddenly the narrow tunnel began slanting upward. Now it was even more difficult to go on. We inched along at a snail's pace, with myself in the lead.

Suddenly I banged my head against something and had to halt.

"Ouch!" I cried, but Basil put his paw to his lips, cautioning silence. He held the flickering candle a little higher. The passage ended there--straight ahead was a wooden panel. Would it open, I wondered, or was it a dead end?

Basil inspected the panel with his magnifying lens as well as he could from his crouching position.

"The panel will swing open," he whispered, his face grim. "However, we are in deadly peril, for we have no way of knowing who lurks on the other side--friends or foes!"

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