He tiptoed to the curtains behind which Bill and Ronnie were hiding. ‘No good,’ he whispered. ‘The door’s wide open. He’s not there.’
‘Listen!’ said Bill, suddenly. ‘I can hear something!’
They listened. It was the clump-clump of marching feet. They came nearer and nearer. It sounded like two or three people. Bill peeped round the side of the curtain when the sound had passed by.
‘Two soldiers,’ he whispered. ‘They must have gone to relieve two others on guard somewhere-and who should they be guarding but the King? We’ll wait and see if two others come back this way, then we shall know the first two have gone on guard somewhere-and we’ll explore down that passage, where the first two went.’
‘When I was here before, the sentry on guard kept disappearing down there,’ said Jack, remembering. ‘It’s a kind of sentry-beat, I think. Perhaps the King has been taken down there and locked into a cell.’
‘Listen!’ said Ronnie. Back came marching feet again and two different sentries went by smartly in the opposite direction from the others, and disappeared. The three could hear the sound of their feet for some time, and then no more.
‘Now!’ said Bill. ‘And keep your ears open and your eyes skinned too.’
They all went down the dark passage where the two first sentries had gone. Right down to the end-round a sharp-angled turn, and down a few steps-along a narrower passage, and round another turn. But here they stopped. They could hear marching feet again-coming nearer!
There was a room opening off near where the three stood. Bill pushed open the door and the three went into it hurriedly. It was quite dark. Bill switched his torch on for a moment and they saw that it was a kind of box-room. The sentries passed right by it, went a good way up the passage and then, stamp-stamp, they turned and came back again.
Bill listened to their feet marching. They seemed to go a long way down the passage, a long, long way, before they turned to come back. ‘I should think the King must be locked up somewhere about the middle of their sentry-go,’ said Bill. ‘We’ll let them come up here once more, and when they have gone right past us, up to the other end of their beat, we’ll slip down here and explore a bit. We can always go and hide beyond the other end of their walk, if we hear them coming back.’
The sentries came marching back, passed the three hidden in the little box-room again, and Went on to the end of their beat. Bill, Ronnie and Jack slipped quickly out of the box-room and ran lightly down the passage. They turned a corner and came to a dead-end. A stout door faced them, well and truly bolted-and locked too, as Bill found when he tried to open it!
‘Sssst!’ said Ronnie, suddenly, and pulled them back into a dark corner. Bill and Jack wondered what had scared him-then they saw!
A door was opening silently opposite to them-a door they hadn’t seen because it was part of the panelling itself. Someone came through carrying a lamp. It was the Count Paritolen. Had he come to kill the King? Or to try once more to persuade him to give up his throne?
Bill saw something else. He saw what the Count was holding-a big key! The key to the King’s room, no doubt!
The Count heard the sentries coming back and went back through the hidden door, closing it softly. He evidently meant to wait till the sentries had come up and then had gone back again.
‘Ronnie,’ said Bill, his mouth close to his friend’s ear, ‘we get that key, do you understand? And we get the Count too. Will you tackle him while I open the door and find out if the King’s there? He mustn’t make any noise.’
‘He won’t,’ said Ronnie, grimly. The sentries came right up, and then turned, stamp-stamp, and went back again. As soon as they had turned the first corner, the hidden door opened again, and the Count stepped through swiftly, lamp in one hand, key in the other.
Everything happened so quickly then that Jack was bewildered. He heard an exclamation from the Count, and then he saw Bill running to the door with the key, and Ronnie dragging the Count hurriedly back through the hidden door. The lamp went out. There was complete silence.
Ronnie came back and switched on his torch. He saw Bill unlocking the door and pulling back bolts. ‘I found a nice little cell back there,’ he said, jerking his head towards the door. ‘Just right for the Count. He’s tied up and he can shout the place down if he likes-nobody can hear him in that room!’
‘Good work,’ said Bill. ‘Blow these bolts-there are half a dozen of them! We’ll have the sentries back here before we know where we are!’
Ronnie blew out the passage lamp that shone near the door. ‘Don’t want the sentries to see the bolts are drawn!’ he said. ‘Buck up, Bill. They’re coming back. Jack and I will wait here-just in case there’s trouble with the sentries. Do buck up!’
Chapter 29
AN EXCITING TIME
BILL at last got the door open and went in. A shaft of light shone out from the room at once. Ronnie shut the door quickly. Jack found that his heart was beginning to thump again. Those sentries-would they come back before Bill had got the King?
The door opened again, but this time no shaft of light showed. Bill had turned out the lamp inside the room. Someone was with him-the King. Oh, good! thought Jack.
The sentries were coming back. Their feet could be clearly heard. Bill hurried the King across to the hidden door, opened it and pushed him through. Ronnie followed, and then Jack.
Just in time! ‘Do you suppose they’ll see the door is unbolted?’ said Jack. ‘You didn’t have time to bolt it.’
‘We’ll soon know!’ said Bill. ‘I’m afraid they will notice it-it’s their job to check up on that, I’m sure.’
Jack suddenly gave a little cry. ‘Kiki! Where is she? She was on my shoulder a minute ago, now she’s gone. I never felt her fly off in my excitement. Oh, Bill-she must be out there in the passage somewhere.’
She was-and she was very much annoyed to find that Jack seemed to have disappeared. Where was he? She could hear the sentries coming nearer and nearer, and the sound of their clump-clump-clumping annoyed her.
She flew up to a jutting-out stone in the wall, and when the two men marched just below her, she hooted long and loud.
‘HOOOOOO! HOOO-HOOO-HOOO!’
The sound of marching feet stopped abruptly. One of the men said something quickly to the other in a frightened voice.
Kiki yapped like a dog and then snarled. It sounded most extraordinary in that dark, echoing passage. The men looked all round. Where was the dog?
‘Mee-ow-ow-ow!’ wailed Kiki, like a hungry cat, and then went off into a cackle of laughter.
‘Wipe your feet, blow your nose, pop goes the weasel, pop-pop-pop!’
The men didn’t understand a word, of course, but that frightened them all the more. They clutched each other, feeling the hairs on their head beginning to prickle in fright.
Kiki coughed and cleared her throat in a remarkably human way. Why that should have put the two sentries into an absolute panic she couldn’t guess! But it certainly did, and, casting their rifles away, they fled down the passage at top speed, howling out something in their own language.
Jack had heard all this, for he had opened the hidden door a little, feeling anxious about Kiki. He listened to her performance with a grin. Good old Kiki! He called her softly and she flew down to his shoulder in delight.
Bill wondered what would be the best thing to do now. It would be dangerous to go back the way they had come, because the scared sentries would certainly arrive back with others to probe into the mystery of the hooting and barking and mewing and coughing!
‘I wonder if the passage behind this hidden door leads anywhere except to the room you put the Count in,’ said Bill to Ronnie.
‘We’ll go and ask him,’ said Ronnie, cheerfully. ‘I’ll poke this in his ribs and see if he’ll talk.’ ‘This’ was his revolver. Bill laughed.
‘You won’t need that. He’ll talk all right when he sees the King here. Your Majesty, perhaps you would like to deal with the Count, and command him to show us the way out?’
The King could talk perfect English. Like Gussy, he had been sent to England to be educated. He nodded, his eyes gleaming. It was obvious that he would certainly enjoy a few words with the Count!
They went to the cell-like room into which Ronnie had shoved the Count, locking him in, nicely tied up. Count Paritolen was on the floor, looking furious. When he saw the King he looked so thunderstruck that Bill laughed.