About two o’clock in the morning
You show me those sheets to-morrow , and I give you my word I will be your partner and the business will be straightforward and properly managed . '' David and Kolb , locked into the distillery , spent nearly two hours in macerating the stems , using a couple of logs for mallets . The fire blazed up , the water boiled . About two o'clock in the morning , Kolb heard a sound which David was too busy to notice , a kind of deep breath like a suppressed hiccough . Snatching up one of the two lighted dips , he looked round the walls , and beheld old Sechard 's empurpled countenance filling up a square opening above a door hitherto hidden by a pile of empty casks in the cellar itself . The cunning old man had brought David and Kolb into his underground distillery by the outer door , through which the casks were rolled when full . The inner door had been made so that he could roll his puncheons straight from the cellar into the distillery , instead of taking them round through the yard .