The unknown began to drag chairs out into the neighbourhood of the light. O’Hara counted six.
The sixth chair had scarcely been placed in position when the door opened again. Six other figures appeared in the opening one after the other, and bolted into the vault like rabbits into a burrow. The last of them closed the door after them.
O’Hara nudged Moriarty, and Moriarty nudged O’Hara; but neither made a sound. They were not likely to be seen—the blackness of the vault was too Egyptian for that—but they were so near to the chairs that the least whisper must have been heard. Not a word had proceeded from the occupants of the chairs so far. If O’Hara’s suspicion was correct, and this was really the League holding a meeting, their methods were more secret than those of any other secret society in existence. Even the Nihilists probably exchanged a few remarks from time to time, when they met together to plot. But these men of mystery never opened their lips. It puzzled O’Hara.
The light of the candle was obscured for a moment, and a sound of puffing came from the darkness.
O’Hara nudged Moriarty again.
“Smoking!” said the nudge.
Moriarty nudged O’Hara.
“Smoking it is!” was the meaning of the movement.
A strong smell of tobacco showed that the diagnosis had been a true one. Each of the figures in turn lit his pipe at the candle, and sat back, still in silence. It could not have been very pleasant, smoking in almost pitch darkness, but it was breaking rules, which was probably the main consideration that swayed the smokers. They puffed away steadily, till the two Irishmen were wrapped about in invisible clouds.
Then a strange thing happened. I know that I am infringing copyright in making that statement, but it so exactly suits the occurrence, that perhaps Mr Rider Haggard will not object. It was a strange thing that happened.
A rasping voice shattered the silence.
“You boys down there,” said the voice, “come here immediately. Come here, I say.”
It was the well-known voice of Mr Robert Dexter, O’Hara and Moriarty’s beloved house-master.
The two Irishmen simultaneously clutched one another, each afraid that the other would think—from force of long habit—that the house-master was speaking to him. Both stood where they were. It was the men of mystery and tobacco that Dexter was after, they thought.
But they were wrong. What had brought Dexter to the vault was the fact that he had seen two boys, who looked uncommonly like O’Hara and Moriarty, go down the steps of the vault at a quarter to six. He had been doing his usual after-lock-up prowl on the junior gravel, to intercept stragglers, and he had been a witness—from a distance of fifty yards, in a very bad light—of the descent into the vault. He had remained on the gravel ever since, in the hope of catching them as they came up; but as they had not come up, he had determined to make the first move himself. He had not seen the six unknowns go down, for, the evening being chilly, he had paced up and down, and they had by a lucky accident chosen a moment when his back was turned.
“Come up immediately,” he repeated.
Here a blast of tobacco-smoke rushed at him from the darkness. The candle had been extinguished at the first alarm, and he had not realised—though he had suspected it—that smoking had been going on.
A hurried whispering was in progress among the unknowns. Apparently they saw that the game was up, for they picked their way towards the door.
As each came up the steps and passed him, Mr Dexter observed “Ha!” and appeared to make a note of his name. The last of the six was just leaving him after this process had been completed, when Mr Dexter called him back.
“That is not all,” he said, suspiciously.
“Yes, sir,” said the last of the unknowns.
Neither of the Irishmen recognised the voice. Its owner was a stranger to them.
“I tell you it is not,” snapped Mr Dexter. “You are concealing the truth from me. O’Hara and Moriarty are down there—two boys in my own house. I saw them go down there.”