Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/137

Rh passed into the town, and commenced to thread those narrow streets which, to the present day, spread in a labyrinth between the port and Bab-el-Oued.

As they passed through one of those streets which, being less frequented than most of the others, was unusually quiet, a low hiss was heard.

At the moment Mariano chanced to be passing an open doorway which led, by a flight of stairs, into a dark cellar. Without an instant's hesitation he tripped up his guard and hurled him headlong into the cellar, where, to judge from the sounds, he fell among crockery and tin pans. At the same moment, Francisco hit a guard beside him such a blow on the chest with his fist, as laid him quite helpless on the ground.

The other ten, who had been selected and let into the intended plot by Castello on account of their superior physical powers, succeeded in knocking down the guards in their immediate neighbourhood, and then all of them dashed with headlong speed along the winding street.

There were one or two passengers and a few small shops in the street, but the thing had been done so suddenly and with so little noise, that the passengers and owners of the shops were not aware of what had occurred until they beheld the twelve captives rush past them like a torrent—each