I
He had no time for further questions. He must see to his own line of retreat.
The Gentleman was winded, and nothing more. The opening of the drain was discovered. No matter. It had done its work, or would have when once it had seen him home.
He clambered up the bank, brushed through the tamarisk, back into the comfortable darkness.
Thank heaven! Blob, the faithful, was still there.
He marked the cheerful gleam of the lantern, a tiny red spark in the darkness.
As he shuffled rapidly along he saw the patch of light on the floor beneath the man-hole.
But—was he mistaken?—or was not that patch, dim and dappled before, bright now as the moon?
He stopped. His heart was thumping so that he almost expected the covering drain to crack, and reveal him to the world.
Suddenly the patch vanished. All was darkness save the red eye of
Blob's lantern far away.
Then that too went out.
The blackness was stifling, horrible. He opened his mouth to draw breath.
Then the light at the man-hole appeared again, shining now no longer on the floor, but on a man's head, bristling, and with huge ears.
Some one was squatting in the drain.
His heart that had been racing brought up bump.
"Any one there, Toadie?" came a voice through the man-hole.
"Only the boy," rumbled the man in the drain.
The words woke Kit to his position. With a ghastly effort he confirmed his mind and faced the situation.
There was one thing for it—to make for the opening, and trust his heels.
Better to be shot down in the open, anyway, than killed in the drain like a rabbit.
He turned round.
As he did so, a hand appeared at the opening, and swept back the tamarisk. A smiling face showed at the mouth of the drain.
"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,"
came the voice of a playful ogre. "Did you ever hear of a man called Blake, Little Chap? One of God's own."
As he said it, a door slammed violently; a great gust of wind rushed past the boy down the drain.
Blob, the faithful, had obeyed his orders.
The boy was alone in Hell, and the Devil was stalking him.