CHAPTER IV

I said nothing to John about the velvet gown. I knew that if I did he would keep me awake talking about all its possible ramifications. Besides, it wasn’t any business of mine. We were led down a damp flight of stone steps, and along another corridor into a part of the building where the floors were wood. I was glad of that because stone floors are cold. We were shown into a room with a heavily barred window, the door of iron bound oak. Its dull thud as it closed told the story of its solidity. I went to the window and found that it overlooked a deep ca?on whose opposite wall was sheer and rocky. We could see nothing else except, below us, about two stories down on that side, where the building conformed to the shape of the mountain, a ledge path, with a stone wall along it. I guessed that it might be the path by which we had climbed to this eyrie.
104I was very sleepy, and so was John, so we lay down on the only bed, fully dressed, and the next thing I knew the sun was pouring in the window. We were facing west. I looked at my watch. It had stopped, but from the position of the sun, I guessed it to be, roughly, around five o’clock. It would begin to be dark inside a couple of hours. I lay still for a minute, wondering what had awakened me. Then a heavy door shut with a dull thud. It was in the next room, I decided, and noticed at the same time that the walls must be much thinner than the doors or I could not have heard the sound so plainly.
Then I heard voices. They were too dim to distinguish words, but there was a man’s voice and a woman’s. I tiptoed to the wall, and placed my ear against it but could not distinguish words. In a moment the door to the other room closed again, and I walked away from the wall just in time. The lock rattled, and then our door swung inward on its hinges, creaking rustily. Not used much, I noted, which mattered to us in that it suggested that the Black Ghost was not in the habit of harboring many prisoners. A man entered, carrying a tray of food.
105“We had orders not to bring lunch because it was thought you would be sleeping,” he said in German, “the Herr Fakat Zol trusts that you have not been inconvenienced.”
“And who,” I asked, “may the Herr Fakat Zol be?”
“The Black Ghost,” he answered, “his name is Fakat Zol.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes, we were sleeping. I only just wakened. My watch has stopped. Would you mind telling me the time?”
“I have not a watch, gn?diger Herr, I cannot tell you exactly,” he answered, “but it should be half past four. It is the afternoon coffee on the tray and the paper from Herrovosca.”
John got off the bed sleepily, and the man left us.
106More from lack of occupation than for any other reason, I opened the paper. Of course I could not read it. In the exact center of the front page was the portrait of a woman. John came over and stared at the paper over my shoulder. I pointed to the name under the portrait. It read: “Maria Lalena, Rhenia Alariavni.” Which, of course it took no great knowledge of the language to know meant “Maria Lalena, Queen of Alaria.” There was another picture on each side of Maria Lalena’s. One was Conrad’s—we read that, too, and felt like sleuths doing it—and the other was a drawing of the Black Ghost, white Templar’s cross and all. Under it was the legend, “Fakat Zol” and more that we could not understand. And glancing through the rest of the paper, each column seemed peppered with the three names. There was a fourth I feared to find, and did not. It was Helena, Countess Waldek. If Prince Conrad had attacked the validity of Maria Lalena’s claim the name Waldek would have appeared. It did not.
“What do you make of it?” John asked.
“Oh, Conrad is waiting for something to start, that’s all. You remember what the Black Ghost said yesterday about being an opportunist?”
“He’s right, too,” John said, “whatever happens can only be to Conrad’s advantage. This business of raking that girl up was only a mad idea that couldn’t possibly succeed, even in a crazy-quilt country like this. She isn’t the Princess, she’s your cousin’s daughter.”
107“You don’t know that,” I said, “and even if it is true Conrad isn’t going to start anything himself, he’s too afraid of a civil war.”
“Why do you think that? Because the Black Ghost said so? Do you suppose he really knows much?”
“I do think he knows much,” I said, “which is merely guess work, of course. I was very much impressed with him. But I have another reason for thinking Conrad wants peace. He wouldn’t have made that speech on the Cathedral steps if he hadn’t.”
“Yes, that’s true,” John admitted. “I wish we could read this paper.”
“Nonsense,” I laughed, “a lot of reporters have got themselves a few interviews, and filled the paper with them. I don’t believe a thing has happened since yesterday. Everyone is waiting to see what his neighbor is going to do about it.”
“I bow to your superior knowledge,” John laughed, “let’s drink the coffee.”
“I have discovered something,” I said, as we poured it out. “There is a woman in the next room.”
108“The Countess Waldek?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “the wall is too thick to tell, but it is very probable.”
“We ought to be able to communicate with her if it is,” John began to be interested.
“We might dig a hole in the wall,” I suggested.
“Monte Cristo!” he laughed. “That takes too long. I know an easier way. Got a long piece of string?”
“No,” I said. “Why should I have? I don’t save string.”
“Must have a long cord,” he said, fussing in one of his bags. I felt in my pockets hopelessly. I knew quite well I had no string.
“Are you any good,” he asked suddenly, “at puzzles?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Nor, I suppose,” he went on, “do you know anything about knitting?”
“It’s a pity,” I said, “that they didn’t shut your grandmother up here with you instead of me.”
109“Yes,” he said. “She is a nice, helpful old lady. However, if, between us, we can manage to unravel that nice handmade sock which cost me half a guinea in London, we will have a long piece of yarn which will immediately put us in communication with the lady next door.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, “nothing easier. During the war they used to send me the most horrible socks from home, and I found an old Frenchwoman who knitted them all up again into good ones. I unravelled them for her, to be sure she would finish before we moved on.” I laid the sock flat on the edge of a wooden chair, took out my slender little gold pen knife which I reflected would have been much more useful to two Monte Cristos if it had been four times as large, with a rough bone handle, though for slicing off the top of the sock it was admirable. After that all I did was pull at it until it began to unravel, and then I went on pulling until in a few minutes we had a very long piece of wool yarn, lying curled at our feet. It took us an hour, then, to untangle it again. I remembered too late that I had learned to wind as I unravelled, to avoid that untangling process. We had to light a candle before we were through. When we had it all wound single, John decided he wanted it wound double, so we started all over again.
110“It would have been less trouble,” I said, “to have dug a hole in the wall.”
“You would say that, now that we are all ready to start operations,” he answered. He then wrote a short note, tucked it into the ball, tied one end of the yarn to the window bar, thrust his arm outside and began throwing the ball toward the next room, and then pulling it back again. I was afraid that before he managed to throw it into the other window the ball of yarn would be frayed beyond use, but I was wrong. John often takes the long way around, but he usually gets there. To my surprise the ball was caught and the line pulled taut. Then we waited, a long time it seemed to me, until at last the yarn slackened, and then John untied it, and pulling very gently on the double loop, finally reached a place on its length where a note had been tied. We opened it eagerly. “Yes,” it began, “I am Helena Waldek. How did you get here? I presume you must have been in that car that passed us last night on the road. We are uncomfortable here, but I think in no personal danger. If you get out before I do please go to Herrovosca to Marie. She may need your help to get away. The Queen is so helpless, she has only her wits now against almost everybody. She sent for me because even Marie has grown hard to manage. I have no hope of getting out in time to be of any help, but they may release you because you are Americans. If they do you must take a message to the Queen. It is most important. Tell her that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring. I will not tell you what that implies because it will be safer for you not to know. But it is of the utmost importance that the Queen should know it. I cannot tell you how important. It makes their danger far greater than before. Burn this note. H. W.”
111It was a desperate note, and Helena, of course, must be desperate. Whoever Maria Lalena might really be, she had been Helena’s daughter for eight years, anyway. And if she were Marie Waldek, she was in very great personal danger. This Black Ghost would not even consider her, and I couldn’t blame him very much. She had committed a serious offense. And she could not count on popular help. Mobs are never respecters of persons.
“‘Tell the Queen that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring,’” John quoted.
112“That means,” I said, “that she has recognised the ring, and that the Queen does not know who he is.”
“Yes,” John said, slowly, “Yes. We ought to get out of this. And we ought to hurry. This is a particularly nasty mess for those two women.”
“Helena and Marie?” I asked.
“No. Marie and the Queen. Helena is safer right here, I believe, than she would be anywhere. They aren’t afraid of her while she’s here, and they are afraid of the other two. It’s not normal to hurt people unless you are afraid of them. I think we ought to try to take that message to Yolanda, and try to get it there before anything breaks that the Black Ghost may consider an opportunity, and turn to his own advantage at their cost.”
“I agree,” I said, “but I hope we don’t get caught. It’s been a nice world so far.”
“Don’t worry,” John said, “I think we have a friend among our jailors.”
“The Black Ghost?” I asked, “don’t fool yourself. He is merely showing off his gentlemanly manners.”
113John laughed, “I know that,” he said, “but as we came down the hall I saw a green velvet gown in one of those rooms, and unless it’s a uniform, it belongs to the Countess Visichich.”
“I saw that,” I said. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”
He laughed. “Afraid to spoil my faith in the lady’s morals?” he asked. “Nonsense, Carvin. I don’t know anything about her, but she’s politician first, and I’d be willing to put a big wager on her—well, on her being mostly just politician, at least so far. She had an unattached look about the eyes.”
“And you think she’ll help us to escape?”
“Oh, no, not at all. But I don’t think she’d let us face a firing squad if we were caught trying to escape.”
“That may be,” I acknowledged, “but I’m not going to count on it too heavily. It would be so easy to shoot first and tell her afterward.”
John went to the Window and twisted his arms through the bars, to shake them. I remembered reading somewhere that it was a trick prisoners developed. The bars were solid.
“The walls are fairly thin,” I suggested.
114“Only on the side toward the Countess’ room. It would do us no good to get in there. The other side is stone—look.”
It was true. Stone, roughly cemented over. A month’s job at the least, to dig through that without proper tools, and we had no idea where we’d be if we did get through. “The wall into the hall is thinner than that,” John went on, “but it wouldn’t be much good to us. They’d find any hole we dug in it before it was big enough to get through. This may have been a cellar or a barracks before they made it into—guest rooms. There’s probably a guard in the hall, anyway.”
“Yes.”
“That leaves the ceiling or the floor, or the bars. The ceiling is too high to reach, so let’s try the floor. We want to go down, anyway, so let’s start. Besides, the boards are wide and old.”
“And fastened together with nice little wooden pegs instead of nails.”
“Dowels, you call them,” John said. “If we select a shortish board and dig out said dowels, we might get through to something interesting.”
115John had a pen knife, too, a little larger than mine, but no bowie knife. We selected a suitable board after a little search. Fifteen minutes loosened the board. The wood had shrunk a little in the years since it had been laid, and we dug the dowels out almost easily. Then, by sticking our little fingers into the holes and pulling upward gently and together, we raised the board from the floor. I looked into the hole before we had it up more than a few inches. There was only darkness below. John blew out our candle, and we took the board away, and peered down. There was a room much like ours below; though it was dark, we could see its outlines. It was quite empty. Looking farther we saw that the door was closed, and it smelled damp and musty, but not poisonously so. It was also bare of any sort of furniture, which indicated that it was never used.
116“I’ll jump down,” John said, “and have a go at those bars. I may be able to get them out. Better make a lump under the bedclothes, so if that man comes back he’ll think I’m asleep; and drop the board back in place after I’m through. If I have to get up again you can tie the sheets together for a rope.” Then he dropped through the hole, and I wrapped my overcoat around most of the blankets, which made a passable body except for the head. I finally decided on an old brown angora sweater from the painting stuff where it had been used as packing, with John’s cap tipped at an angle over it, as though to keep the light out of his eyes. Then I carried the candle to the other side of the room, and decided that it was a good enough mummy to deceive a casual eye in that light. There was one rug in the room. Instead of replacing the board I decided to throw it over the hole, and pulled the table over that. Then I turned to Helena’s side of the room.
In order to get her out we must break down the wall that separated us. I couldn’t quite see leaving her without trying to do something about it. I pulled a package of four canvasses strapped together over to the wall, and behind it I dug a small hole in the cement with my gold knife. I knew that Helena heard me because I presently heard her moving some things about in her room, and then she began digging, too. I wanted to warn her about hiding the dust from the hole, but decided that a woman would think of that.
117I had not dug more than a few minutes before my knife snapped off at the handle. The jeweller who made it had not reinforced it for cement digging. I had no other sharp instrument, so I had to stop. I could hear Helena still at it on the other side, though. Then John called to me, and I pulled the carpet away from the hole in the floor.
“In my painting stuff,” he said, “you will find a large wooden box marked ‘etching’ on the cover. In that is some paraffin and a bottle of acid in a wooden barrel with a screw top. You might dig out a couple of small brushes, too, from the other stuff, and give them to me.”
“What’s all that for?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going to try etching through the bars,” he explained, “it’s so damp here that they are pretty well rusted through anyway. I can do it easily if there’s enough of the acid.”
“You’d better work quietly down there,” I said, “they’ll be bringing our dinner any moment now.”
118I felt quite sure as I went to look for the things that I should not find the acid, as undoubtedly the Black Ghost would consider it a very dangerous weapon. I was mistaken, however, or else they did not know what it was. Probably they considered all painting materials harmless. There was about five ounces of the stuff—enough to rout a small army if anyone had the indecency to throw it in a man’s eyes. I made sure the top of the container was safely screwed on again before I handed it down to John. I knelt and lifted the edge of the rug and was reaching downward as far as possible to meet John’s hand, when a key was turned in the door. John’s fingers had just closed over the wooden barrel of acid. I dropped the other things perforce, trusting to the creaking of the opening door to mask the sound of their fall. I was trying to look as though I were tying my shoe as the man entered with our dinner. I continued to tie it serenely after the door opened, merely glancing up and saying “guten Abend” in what I hoped would pass for a casual tone of voice.
This time there were two men instead of one. One carried the heavy tray of food, and I was hungry enough to be glad it was heavy, the other held a lantern, and stayed near the door. By the time the first man had put the tray on the table I had straightened up, and was moving toward him quite calmly.
119“The Herr Fakat Zol,” he said, rather elaborately, “presents his compliments to the gn?digen Herrn, and regrets that he cannot entertain them at dinner.”
I have always read about heroes who remained calm in all emergencies, and now I had found that when one of them happened to me, I was not calm and therefore not a hero. I felt nervous and jumpy even after the men had gone and locked the door again, which was a little hard on my self esteem since it had been such a small emergency.
When I dared to look down again John was standing just where he had been when I handed him the acid. He had not moved even to pick up the things I had dropped.
“We missed by an eyelash having to dine with the Black Ghost,” I told him. “Come on up and eat.”
“Not on your life.” He shook his head, excitedly, “it would take half an hour to get me up there and down again. Have to rig up the sheets to climb by. Can’t spare the time. Give me some food through the hole, and I think we may make it before midnight. The moon will come up soon after, so we can’t risk it later.”
120I gave him soup in a coffee cup, and two huge sandwiches with thick-sauced meat in them, and an apple. Then I smeared his plate with gravy, and a few edges of meat, to look as though he had eaten, and ate my own dinner. Later when John had finished the soup I rinsed the cup and gave him coffee in it. Then I put even the apple core back on the tray, and finally stuck the knife and fork he should have eaten with in some of the gravy. Altogether it was an artistic job, that tray. I took off one knife with a prayer that its absence would not be noticed.
I did not dare start work on the wall again until the tray should be taken away, and while I sat waiting idly I thought over Helena’s position, and decided that John was right about not wanting to get her out. She had been meddling very seriously in the affairs of a country that was as foreign to her as it was to us. The Rheatian government would probably not help her under the circumstances, the Alarians would hate her, and if she got out she would rush straight to Herrovosca. The Black Ghost, I felt sure, would release her when—and if—there was no further end to be served by keeping her quiet. That would be when Yolanda and Maria Lalena had been driven out of the country. And Conrad was right, of course, from every standpoint, especially that of expediency. An unpopular dowager and an unknown and inexperienced girl could not hope to keep peace and a throne in a tumultuous country like Alaria.
121However, in spite of my feeling that she should be left behind, as soon as the tray had been removed I started back at the wall again with my stolen table knife. Reasoning that a woman should be left to the mercy of a masked bandit was one thing, and not trying to get her out was another.
It must have been two hours before our knives met through the wall. Then we examined the sides of the hole, and found that we had been playing the fool. The wall was of concrete laid on a modern steel lath, and not a single layer of lath, but a double one, with about four inches between where the joists ran up. All we had accomplished was a more direct method of communication than our yarn telegraph.
I put my mouth as close to the hole as possible, “Helena!” I said.
122“Yes, Marshall,” she answered. “I have seen how hopeless it is, and it’s quite all right. The important thing is for one of you to get out. If you could stab the guard when he brings the tray—”
“So that’s the sort of thing the Balkans have taught a lady from Boston?” I asked. “Suppose your grandmother Collins could hear you now? Anyway, we’d have to stab two of them at the door of this room, and no one knows how many more before the way out of this nest was clear. No, that may have been all right in the eighteenth century, but I’m afraid we shouldn’t get away with it.” Then I told her about the loosened board and the acid. “If you could tell us how to get to Herrovosca without a car after we leave this place—” I finished.
“I can’t,” she said, “I’ve only the most hazy idea where we may be.”
“South or southwest of the place where we were captured.”
123“I did not know even that,” she said. “We must be somewhere near the Visichich’s manor. We’re not in it. The country there is hilly, but not rocky and bare like the cliff out of that window. No, we’re still in the mountains. I think,” she went on, “if we only knew just where we are, and how to get here, we should hold the key to the control of Alaria—if we had some loyal troops.”
“I fear,” I said, “that two ‘ifs’ make a negative.”
“If that’s supposed to be funny,” she said, “I think it’s ill-timed.”
“It wasn’t,” I assured her, solemnly. “I was only trying to point out that this man’s secrecy is strength for him but not strength for anyone trying to undermine him. I just don’t believe that the people who believe in the supernatural Black Ghost would listen even if he were unmasked before them. They would merely say that the man who was unmasked was an impostor, and the Black Ghost would go right on.”
“That’s what I mean,” she said, cryptically, “these legends have endured for eight hundred years, and now a living man has conceived the idea of impersonating them, and making political capital out of the impersonation.”
124“I believe it’s more than that,” I answered, “this ghost held an army back not a hundred years ago. And this stronghold bears all the earmarks of a place that has been built for centuries. Isn’t the Black Ghost rather a secret society?”
“That has been kept secret for eight hundred years?” she laughed. “I find it less fantastic to believe in the supernatural. A secret society it might be, but not a society that has been kept secret for centuries.”
“Yet here it all is,” I said, “and the food’s not ghostly, at any rate.”
“A ghost would be the lesser miracle,” she answered.
“And a real man the greater danger,” I said.
“Much the greater danger, Marshall, if you don’t get to the Queen. I have a pass that will take you to her through all accredited government barriers, but don’t forget that there may be no accredited government by now. They did not search me—thought it quite useless, I suppose. Your Black Ghost asked me if I carried any despatches or state papers, and when I gave him my word of honor that I did not, he sent me down here. Decent of him.” Through one of the diamond shaped spaces in the lath she handed me a small folded paper. “I hid it in my shoe,” she said. “It’s as good a hiding place as any. I shall be far safer here than you are, so do not hesitate on my account. A friend of the Queen will be treated with respect, so don’t worry.”
125I took the paper from her, and placed it in my own shoe. Then I pushed the canvasses against the hole in the wall again, and went over to see how John was progressing. As I looked down through the floor I found him prying at the remaining bars with one that was already loose. At each pull they moved, but the opening was still closed effectively against our escape. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes to eleven. I called down to John, “What do you say I come down there? The two of us ought to get that out pretty easily.”
“If we had another lever,” he said, “but we haven’t, and if anyone comes into that room while you are down here the game will be up. I’ll have it out in a few minutes now. The acid gave out, but I weakened all the bars with it. I couldn’t hold it where I wanted it, and it ran down the stone. We’ll have to be careful getting out of here or we’ll be burned by it.”
“I’ll bring a blanket from the bed,” I said.
126“Yes,” John agreed, “and get out a couple of socks from that black bag, and a clean collar apiece, and four handkerchiefs, and a comb and the jar of salve. Also I want some water to wash my hands in before we go. Might as well be civilised if we’re going to pay our first call on Royalty. And say good-bye to your cousin for me, with apologies and regrets.”
I obeyed all his instructions and stuffed the things into my pockets. I had hardly finished when I heard a sharp crack from the room below. I went to the hole in the wall again and called through to Helena, “He’s got the bars out, and I am going now. I hope and pray you may be safe.”
“And you,” she said, “don’t forget that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring. All my prayers go with you. à dieu.”
“à dieu,” I replied, feeling pretty mean about leaving her, but not seeing anything else to do. I pushed a blanket through the hole in the floor, then tied the water pitcher to a torn pillow case, and let that down, after which I dropped down myself, carefully, so that the rug would fall back smoothly over the hole. The longer they puzzled over how we had got out the more time we should have to get away.
127“Don’t think about your cousin now,” John said, “there’s very little chance of our being useful to her if we stay, whereas if we should really manage to get away we might conceivably be able to get back here again with a rescue party.”
“The rescue will be accomplished another way,” I said, “if at all.”
John showed me his hands then, they were raw with burns and blisters. “Good Lord,” I said, “you can’t go with hands like that.”
128“Don’t be silly,” he answered, “that’s what I want the handkerchiefs and salve for. Time’s precious, but I guess we’ll save it by using a little sense.” He soaked his wounds carefully in the clean water, and then held them out while I applied the salve. It must have been a stinging dose, but he stood it well. Then I put the jar back in my pocket, and arranged the blanket in the window so that what acid remained there should not burn us or our clothes. John climbed through first. I waited and slowly counted ten before I followed. The drop was really quite short. I let myself down from the ledge, holding fast by my hands until I was hanging flat against the wall of the building. Then I let go. It was all very simple. Almost too simple. I suspected an ambush any moment as we went down the path single file. Overhead, the stars were shining; below us, far down the valley, a single light flickered, though whether it was a signal light or in a cabin we could not tell. Then, suddenly, the stars and the light below us were cut off. We had entered a tunnel. I was sure then, that we were trapped after all. It had been too easy a matter, getting out of the place. The end of the path must be blocked, and all that we had won was the pleasure of spending the night outdoors.
But I was wrong. The tunnel was a long one, but unguarded, and fairly straight. It was damp, however, and very slippery underfoot, and there were bats in it. Once or twice we brought up square against a wall, but we always found, a moment or so later, that the way continued at an angle. It was pitch dark, of course, and though I had brought candles and some matches from our room, we did not dare to strike a light.
129At last, ahead of us, we saw a star. I stopped, and spoke in the lowest whisper I could manage, to urge John to extra caution. Without a light we had no means of knowing how much longer the tunnel was, and at its end there would undoubtedly be a guard. We must go carefully.
That last few yards was so slow and silent that it seemed like years before we saw the sky above and not ahead of us. The path was still narrow, and, like that we had seen below our prison windows, a mere ledge along the cliff. There was no one on the path itself, but on a level a little above it, with a rifle at his shoulder, his body silhouetted against the sky from where we crouched, stalked a sentinel. He was guarding not only the path where we were, but another that branched off from it as well. The other must be the important one or he would have stayed down on our level. A short flight of stone steps connected the two. I could just see them in the darkness. John dropped to his knees, close to the low retaining wall, and, step by slow step, began making his way across the open space. I dropped to my knees, too, but merely to be less obvious in case the man should flash a light. I could not see John after a moment or two. He disappeared into the darkness. There was no way for me to tell how far he had crawled, for he literally made not a sound. Two bats circled round and round over our heads, swooping close to the sentinel at times. I did not know whether they would prove a help to us in distracting the man’s attention, or, by coming too close to us, betray us. Our fate seemed to hang on a bat’s whim.
130I waited a long time before I dared begin my slow and rather painful crawl. I had to lift my knee quite off the ground at each advance, because the roll of a pebble would have been suicidal. I passed the steps at last. They marked the end of the sentinel’s beat. I waited for him to turn before I moved again. Before he returned I had taken four steps. He was above me, and just four steps behind, when, careful as I had been, I struck a loose stone with my knee, and sent it rolling a yard or two across the path. The sentinel turned suddenly. I heard him. I jumped to my feet, and ran. Three shots sounded, but I did not stop. A moment later John was beside me. We wasted no breath talking, but ran on desperately until he stumbled and fell. He tripped me as he went down, and we lay for a second, listening for our pursuers. There was no sound. We had left the path and were no longer on the edge of the cliff, though still on a side hill, but overhead trees arched so that we could not see the stars. We were in a forest, which meant that we had come quite far down the mountain, and were in a valley, for on the exposed upper slopes there were no trees. We must have run a mile at least.
131“There’s no one after us,” John said.
“What does that mean, do you suppose?”
“Either that we lost the way in the darkness or that they can’t be bothered with catching us. What I think is that if we find our way to the high road we’ll walk into more of the gang, and if we are lost in the mountains, as we may be, we don’t count. I was lost in quite civilised woods in northern Connecticut once, for a day and a night. This may not be funny before we’re through. There won’t be any friendly neighbors to come out looking for us. That get-away was too easy.”
“Don’t be so gloomy,” I said, “being lost is probably our only hope of getting away. We can steer south-west by the stars.”
132“That’s all very well to suggest,” John said, “but there is a lot of rough going around here, and while we twist north and east and all the ways between to get around gullies and boulders, who is going to tell us we are really going south-west? I tried that steering by the stars business in Connecticut and it’ll be the same sort of thing here only worse.”
“You think we should try to find the high road, then?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think it’s going to matter much what we try to find. It’s going to be entirely a matter of luck—good luck or bad luck. What I chiefly hope is that there aren’t any more Fakat Zols working on their own around here.”
I told him I thought that very unlikely, because one strong bandit would clean up all the little ones in short order, and he agreed. “Let’s just keep on down this slope,” he said. “At least it’s down hill, and south. We’ll undoubtedly have to climb up again before we’re through, and twist around a lot, but we may come out.”
133It was a nightmare journey. At every slightest sound we stopped to listen. The hillside was smooth enough so that in spite of the darkness we had little difficulty keeping on it, but there were a thousand noises in the night that brought us up short to listen again.
We must have walked for more than an hour, when at last a pale gleam on the highest branches of some trees told us that the moon was up. Suddenly we heard unmistakable footsteps, and a beam of light from an electric torch showed us a path, sloping downward, directly ahead of us. John and I hid as well as we could behind the trees. Unfortunately our cover was poor. They were pines and sparse, with little underbrush, but the night was dark, and by crouching low we hoped to escape notice. The steps approached, there was no attempt at concealment, so we judged that the person approaching must be one of the Black Ghost’s men. The light flashed again on the path, nearer, in a wide sweep, blinding to us, who had been in darkness so long. We waited without moving.
Suddenly a second swathe of light fell across John’s face. I saw him distinctly from my partial cover. The light stopped an instant, flashed wider, across me, and then went out.