Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/206

 precious lot would have been likely to accomplish. A lot of blundering gorillas!”

“Aha!” roared another big thickset fellow. “You insult the Comrades? I will soon set the sign of the Red Hand round your throat.”

He half rose, glaring ferociously at the Frenchman, but one of his companions pulled him back again.

“No quarrelling,” he grunted. “We’re to work together. From all I heard this King Victor doesn’t stand for being disobeyed.”

In the darkness, Anthony heard the footsteps of the sentry coming his round again, and he drew back behind a bush.

“Who’s that?” said one of the men inside.

“Carlo—going his rounds.”

“Oh! What about the prisoner?”

“He’s all right—coming round pretty fast now. He’s recovered well from the crack on the head we gave him.”

Anthony moved gently away.

“God! what a lot,” he muttered. “They discuss their affairs with an open window, and that fool Carlo goes his round with the tread of an elephant, and the eyes of a bat. And to crown all, the Herzoslovakians and the French are on the point of coming to blows. King Victor’s headquarters seem to be in a parlous condition. It would amuse me, it would amuse me very much, to teach them a lesson.”

He stood irresolute for a minute, smiling to himself.

From somewhere above his head came a stifled groan.

Anthony looked up. The groan came again.

Anthony glanced quickly from left to right. Carlo was not due round again just yet. He grasped the heavy Virginia creeper and climbed nimbly till he reached the sill of a window. The window was shut, but with a tool from his pocket he soon succeeded in forcing up the catch.

He paused a minute to listen, then sprang lightly inside the room. There was a bed in the far corner and on that bed a man was lying, his figure barely discernible in the gloom.

Anthony went over to the bed, and flashed his pocket torch on the man’s face. It was a foreign face, pale and emaciated, and the head was swathed in heavy bandages.

The man was bound hand and foot. He stared up at Anthony like one dazed.

Anthony bent over him, and as he did so he heard a