TRAPPED
Meanwhile, what had happened to Warrender?
On entering the cottage by way of the tunnel and the cellar, he went
upstairs to make a careful survey of the surroundings, saw no sign of
the enemy, and hurried across the island to the pram, in which he
crossed the river unobserved. In less than ten minutes he was back at
the cottage with the hammer and chisel taken from his motor-boat. As he
was on the point of re-opening the trap, he found that the electric
torch showed a much feebler light than before, and if it gave out before
Mr. Pratt was brought away, the flight through the tunnel might be
dangerously delayed. It seemed worth while to pay another rapid visit
to the camp for the purpose of getting a small hand lamp or a couple of
candles. Laying the hammer and chisel under the staircase, he went up
again, once more crossed the island, found one candle in the motorboat,
and returned without delay.
It happened, however, that as he left the cottage on this second
journey, Rush and his big flat-faced companion were approaching it from
the south. Unseen themselves, they caught sight of Warrender as he
emerged from the entrance, watched him until he had disappeared into the
thicket, waited a few minutes, then entered the cottage and descended to
the cellar. They had no light, and Warrender had taken the precaution
of carefully replacing the flagstone; but in his haste he had omitted to
close the upright slab beneath the lowest step, leaving open the access
to the handgrips. Rush was suspicious. The gap might have been left
open, of course, by one of the confederates; on the other hand, it was
possible that the secret passage had been discovered by the boy he had
seen leaving the cottage. The boy might return, and Rush allowed his
curiosity to delay the visit to the tower on which he had been summoned.
It was an error of judgment that had important consequences.
He posted himself with his companion in a remote corner of the cellar,
and waited.
Some ten minutes later, Warrender came down the steps. He flashed his
torch to light the opening, retrieved the hammer and chisel, and laid
them down on the flagstone while he inserted his arm in the gap to turn
the hand-grips. All the time his back was towards the men lurking
within twenty feet of him. As he sprawled over the stone, there was a
sudden noise behind him. Hastily withdrawing his hand, he half rose, but
too late. Seized by powerful hands and taken at a disadvantage, he was
helpless. His torch fell into the gap, and in the darkness he was
dragged up the stairs between his captors.
"Cotched 'en!" chuckled Rush, as they lugged him through the hall.
"What'll we do with 'en, Sibelius?"
"Kill!" said the Finn. "Throw in river!"
"No, no, that won't do!" said Rush. "He bain't alone. There's the
other young devils. It bain't safe. I think of my neck. No; we'll take
'en down to the hut and tie 'en up; he'll be out of harm's way there,
and in a few hours it won't matter."
Like most Englishmen in speaking to a foreigner, he shouted, and the
Finn warned him to speak more quietly: the prisoner would hear all he
said.
"What do it matter?" laughed Rush. "Let 'en hear--by the time his
friends find 'en we'll be far away. Curious 'tis, that we've cotched
'en the very last day. If it'd a been yesterday, we might have _had_ to
kill 'en. We'll stuff up his mouth, though; t'others may be about."
Pulling Warrender's handkerchief from his pocket, he rolled it up, and
thrust it between the lad's teeth. Warrender ruefully reflected that
just in such a way had Jensen been gagged that morning. Then the men
hauled him through the thicket towards the point of the island where
Rush moored his boat.
"I say, Sibelius," remarked Rush, when they were half-way there, "I
reckon we'd better not take 'en to the hut after all. 'Twill take time,
and we don't know where his mates be. Better go and tell the boss all
about it; he'd be fair mad if anything spoilt his game the last moment."
"What we do, then?" asked the Finn.
"We'll truss 'en up: plenty of rope in the boat; and put 'en in among
the bushes. He'll be snug enough there."
He chuckled. Dismayed at the prospect opened before him, Warrender, who
had hitherto offered no resistance, made a sudden dive towards the
ground, at the same time throwing out his leg in an attempt to trip the
bulkier of his captors. But though he succeeded in freeing one arm, and
causing the Finn to stumble, he had no time to wrench himself from
Rush's grip before the other man had recovered his balance and seized
him in a clutch of iron.
"Best come quiet!" growled Rush, "or there's no saying what we might do
to you. I've got a tender heart," he chuckled, "but my mate 'ud as soon
kill a man as a rat."
Arrived at the boat, they threw him into the bottom, and the Finn held
him down while Rush swiftly roped his arms and legs together. Then they
carried him a few yards into the thicket, and laid him down in a spot
where he was completely hidden from any one who might pass within arm's
length of him.
[Illustration: "RUSH SWIFTLY ROPED HIS ARMS AND LEGS TOGETHER."]
"Now we'll traipse through to the tower," said Rush. "He'll take a deal
of finding, I'm thinking!"
The men struck away towards the ruins, satisfied that their victim could
not escape, and that his hiding-place was not likely to be discovered
until discovery mattered nothing. They had not noticed, however, that
while the trussing was in progress, Warrender's cap had fallen off, and
now lay between two of the thwarts of the boat.
Pratt, hurrying along the tunnel with the hammer and chisel, and knowing
that he was pursued, felt that he had done rightly in not making a
prolonged search for Warrender. His sole pre-occupation now was the
necessity of outstripping his pursuers by an interval sufficient to
allow him time to block up their ingress to the tower. If Armstrong was
still unmolested, and Mr. Pratt could be set free, the three were
capable of dealing with the two men in the tunnel, and might make good
their escape before Gradoff and his confederates at the tower door had
any inkling of the true situation.
He soon understood that he was gaining on the men behind; but he
presently became aware that, not far ahead of him, daylight seemed to
have percolated into the tunnel. For a moment he was nonplussed until
he remembered the dry well. It then occurred to him in a flash that
some one must have removed the boards that had lain across the top of
the well, and he was seized with a misgiving. Had Gradoff, unable to
obtain admittance to the tower, bethought himself of this opening into
the tunnel from above, and lowered one or more of his men, who had
already made their way to the end, and perhaps overpowered Armstrong?
Taking advantage of the faint illumination of the tunnel, he quickened
his pace. In a moment or two he saw to his consternation a man swing
down the well, and on reaching the ground, begin to release himself from
the rope that was looped under his arms. It was not a time for
hesitation. Pratt dashed forward, flung himself against the man before
he was free from the rope, and drove him doubled up against the wall.
The man yelled; from the top of the well forty feet above them came
excited shouts; and out of the tunnel behind sounded hoarse
reverberating cries from the pursuers, who must have seen what had
happened. Pratt plunged into the tunnel beyond, and, sprinting along
with reckless haste, arrived in a few minutes breathless at the end,
where the flagstone was still raised as he had left it.
He sprang up, slammed down the flagstone behind him, and let out a lusty
cry for Armstrong to join him.
"They're after me--at least three of them!" he exclaimed, as Armstrong
came leaping down the stairs. "Help me to lug these boxes on to the
flagstone."
The crates and boxes ranged along the wall were empty, and their weight
alone would not have sufficed to resist the pressure of determined men
below. But the roof was low-pitched, and the boys saw that by piling
box upon box they could create an obstruction which would defy all
efforts to remove it. With feverish haste they dragged the boxes across
the floor, and had already placed them one upon another when they heard
footsteps beneath, and felt a movement of the flagstone.
"Another box will do it," said Armstrong. "You must heave it up while I
stand on the stone."
He placed himself on the half of the stone that moved upwards as it
revolved, and bore down with all his weight. Pratt pulled over a fourth
box, and, standing on the projecting edge of that which formed the base
of the pile, managed with some difficulty to shove it on to the top,
where a space of no more than two or three inches separated it from the
roof.
"Good man!" said Armstrong, stepping off the stone.
The pressure below raised it perhaps three inches, then it stuck.
"We'll put another pile on each side, to make all secure," said
Armstrong. "Then I think we needn't worry."
With less haste they erected the buttress piles, listening grimly to the
hoarse curses of Rush, and shriller cries from a foreigner by whose
voice they recognised the Italian chauffeur. In a few minutes their
work was done. Short of an explosion, nothing could dislodge the jam of
boxes between the flagstone and the roof.
Panting from the strain of their exertions, they went up into the tower.
"Where's Phil?" asked Armstrong.
"I don't know," replied Pratt, going on to relate rapidly his discovery
at the end of the tunnel.
"They've got him, I expect," said Armstrong. "Though I can't make out
how they came to leave this hammer and chisel."
"What has happened here?" asked Pratt.
"Nothing. Gradoff and the others waited outside for a bit, talking
quietly. I couldn't understand what they said. Then Gradoff sent the
chauffeur towards the house, and by and by went off himself in the
direction of the river, leaving the two strangers behind. Evidently he
had sent the chauffeur for a rope. Perhaps he thought Jensen had drunk
himself silly, and decided to let a man down the well--a much shorter
way than going across to the island and entering by the tunnel. The
fat's in the fire now. If we release your uncle we can't get him away."
"No," replied Pratt, looking through the chink in the boards. "Here
they come: Gradoff, Rod, the Pole, the whole gang except the fellows
below. It strikes me we are squarely trapped."
Looking towards the prisoner on the floor, Armstrong fancied he caught a
malignant gleam in the man's eyes.
"On the whole," he said quietly, "I'm inclined to agree with you."