He shone his torch on the wall. Yes-there were the chalk-marks. Good! He put his head into the well-opening and yelled at the top of his voice.
“Anne! I’m in the dungeons! Watch out that the men don’t come back!”
Then he began to follow the white chalk-marks, his heart beating fast. After a while he came to the door of the store-room. As he had expected, it was fastened so that George and Julian couldn’t get out. Big bolts had been driven home at the top and bottom, and the children inside could not possibly get out. They had tried their hardest to batter down the door, but it was no good at all.
They were sitting inside the storecave, feeling angry and exhausted. The man had brought them food and drink, but they had not touched it. Tim was with them, lying down with his head on his paws, half-angry with George because she hadn’t let him fly at the men as he had so badly wanted to. But George felt certain that Tim would be shot if he tried biting or snapping.
“Anyway, the other two had sense enough not to come down and be made prisoners too,” said George. “They must have known there was something funny about that note when they saw I had signed myself Georgina instead of George. I wonder what they are doing. They must be hiding.”
Tim suddenly gave a growl. He leapt to his feet and went to the closed door, his head on one side. He had heard something, that was certain.
“I hope it’s not those men back again already,” said George. Then she looked at Tim in surprise, flashing her torch on to him. He was wagging his tail!
A great bang at the door made them all jump out of their skins! Then came Dick’s cheerful voice. “Hi, Julian! Hi, George! Are you here?”
“Wuffffff!” barked Tim, joyfully and scratched at the door.
“Dick! Open the door!” yelled Julian in delight. “Quick, open the door!”
Chapter Sixteen
A PLAN-AND A NARROW ESCAPE
DICK unbolted the door at the top and bottom and flung it open. He rushed in and thumped George and Julian happily on the back.
“Hallo!” he said. “How does it feel to be rescued?”
“Fine!” cried Julian, and Tim barked madly round them.
George grinned at Dick.
“Good work!” she said. “What happened?”
Dick told them in a few words all that had happened. When he related how he had climbed down the old well, George and Julian could hardly believe their ears. Julian slipped his arm through his younger brother’s.
“You’re a brick!” he said. “A real brick! Now quick-what are we going to do?”
“Well, if they’ve left us our boat I’m going to take us all back to the mainland as quickly as possible,” said George. “I’m not playing about with men who brandish revolvers all the time. Come on! Up the well we go and find the boat.”
They ran to the well-shaft and squeezed through the small opening one by one. Up the rope they went, and soon found the iron ladder. Julian made them go up one by one in case the ladder wouldn’t bear the weight of all three at once.
It really wasn’t very long before they were all up in the open air once more, giving Anne hugs, and hearing her exclaim gladly, with tears in her eyes, how pleased she was to see them all again.
“Now come on!” said George after a minute. “Off to the boat. Quick! Those men may be back at any time.”
They rushed to the cove. There was their boat, lying where they had pulled it, out of reach of the waves. But what a shock for them!
“They’ve taken the oars!” said George, in dismay. “The beasts! They know we can’t row the boat away without oars. They were afraid you and Anne might row off, Dick-so instead of bothering to tow the boat behind them, they just grabbed the oars. Now we’re stuck. We can’t possibly get away.”
It was a great disappointment. The children were almost ready to cry. After Dick’s marvellous rescue of George and Julian, it had seemed as if everything was going right-and now suddenly things were going wrong again.
“We must think this out,” said Julian, sitting down where he could see at once if any boat came in sight. “The men have gone off-probably to get a ship from somewhere in which they can put the ingots and sail away. They won’t be back for some time, I should think, because you can’t charter a ship all in a hurry-unless, of course, they’ve got one of their own.”
“And in the meantime we can’t get off the island to get help, because they’ve got our oars,” said George. “We can’t even signal to any passing fishing-boat because they won’t be out just now. The tide’s wrong. It seems as if all we’ve got to do is wait here patiently till the men come back and take my gold! And we can’t stop them.”
“You know-I’ve got a sort of plan coming into my head,” said Julian, slowly. “Wait a bit-don’t interrupt me. I’m thinking.”
The others waited in silence while Julian sat and frowned, thinking of his plan. Then he looked at the others with a smile.
“I believe it will work,” he said. “Listen! We’ll wait here in patience till the men come back. What will they do? They’ll drag away those stones at the top of the dungeon entrance, and go down the steps. They’ll go to the store-room, where they left us-thinking we are still there, and they will go into the room. Well, what about one of us being hidden down there ready to bolt them into the room? Then we can either go off in their motor-boat or our own boat if they bring back our oars-and get help.”
Anne thought it was a marvellous idea. But Dick and George did not look so certain. “We’d have to go down and bolt that door again to make it seem as if we are still prisoners there,” said George. “And suppose the one who hides down there doesn’t manage to bolt the men in? It might be very difficult to do that quickly enough. They will simply catch whoever we plan to leave down there, and come up to look for the rest of us.”
“That’s true,” said Julian, thoughtfully. “Well-we’ll suppose that Dick, or whoever goes down, doesn’t manage to bolt them in and make them prisoners-and the men come up here again. All right-while they are down below we’ll pile big stones over the entrance, just as they did. Then they won’t be able to get out.”
“What about Dick down below?” said Anne, at once.
“I could climb up the well again!” said Dick, eagerly. “I’ll be the one to go down and hide. I’ll do my best to bolt the men into the room. And if I have to escape I’ll climb up the well-shaft again. The men don’t know about that. So even if they are not prisoners in the dungeon room, they’ll be prisoners underground!”
The children talked over this plan, and decided that it was the best they could think of. Then George said she thought it would be a good thing to have a meal. They were all half-starved and, now that the worry and excitement of being rescued was over, they were feeling very hungry!
They fetched some food from the little room and ate it in the cove, keeping a sharp look-out for the return of the men. After about two hours they saw a big fishing-smack appear in the distance, and heard the chug-chug-chug of a motor-boat too.
“There they are!” said Julian, in excitement, and he jumped to his feet. “That’s the ship they mean to load with the ingots, and sail away in safety-and there’s the motor-boat bringing the men back! Quick, Dick, down the well you go, and hide until you hear them in the dungeons!”
Dick shot off. Julian turned to the others. “We’ll have to hide,” he said. “Now that the tide is out we’ll hide over yonder, behind those uncovered rocks. I don’t somehow think the men will do any hunting for Dick and Anne -but they might. Come on! Quick!”
They all hid themselves behind the rocks, and heard the motor-boat come chugging into the tiny harbour. They could hear men calling to one another. There sounded to be more than two men this time. Then the men left the inlet and went up the low cliff towards the ruined castle.
Julian crept behind the rocks and peeped to see what the men were doing. He felt certain they were pulling away the slabs of stone that had been piled on top of the entrance to prevent Dick and Anne going down to rescue the others.
“George! Come on!” called Julian in a low tone. “I think the men have gone down the steps into the dungeons now. We must go and try to put those big stones back. Quick!”