Fortunately, the Hardy boys were not standing in the path of the shot. But the noise had attracted the attention of the smugglers outside the house, and in a few seconds the back door was flung open.
"They're in here!" some one yelled. "They're in the house!"
Fenton Hardy flung to one side the man with whom he had been struggling.
"Upstairs!" he called out to the two boys and ran on into the next room.
A feeble light was burning, a candle standing in its own grease near the bottom of the staircase. Up these stairs they fled, Joe pausing long enough to extinguish the candle. The room was plunged into darkness just as the first of the smugglers rushed through the doorway.
Fenton Hardy waited at the top of the stairs until the boys joined him.
Somebody in the room below lit a match.
The detective fired directly at the spluttering light. There was a muttered exclamation. The match was immediately extinguished by the smuggler who had been so incautious as to reveal his whereabouts in this manner. A whispered conversation followed.
"He's at the top of the stairs!" said one of the smugglers. "We can't rush him. He's got a revolver."
