“Let a man watch each side of the house,” said Jack. “Bates and I will enter, and pass all the valuables out to you; put them into the boat as fast as possible, and if there should be any alarm, run towards the river. The boat is large enough to take us all.”
“If we only had skeleton keys now,” said Bates.
“Hang your skeleton keys,” said Jack, in disgust. “Don’t I know all about the house? I ought to do, for I’ve been in it often enough; no skeleton keys in the world would open those doors, they are doubly bolted inside, and cased with iron. Give me the rope-ladder.”
With great dexterity, Captain Jack threw one end of the rope-ladder up into the air, and the hooks at the end caught in the iron railings of the balcony.
“Silence!” said Captain Jack, and after trying its strength, he began to ascend.
But for a moment let us see what was going on inside the house.
Ellen Harmer was confined therein, and was supposed to be strictly watched both night and day by the deaf and dumb eunuch—the Nubian slave.
The fame of her great beauty had reached the ears of the king; but instead of presenting her to majesty, Colonel Blood had made up his mind to keep her for himself, after having, as he termed it, “tamed her” into submission.
But this proved a much harder task than the colonel had ever imagined.