It was five minutes to eleven when we gained the dungeon, and we knew that Nikka must be at a loss to account for our failure to signal him. He might suppose us to be casualties of the storm, and in desperation, attack alone on his own account. So we wasted no time, beyond shaking the water from our clothes.
The lower passage and cellars were deserted, but as we climbed the stairs leading to the central hall opening on the little atrium between the Garden of the Cedars and the large chamber which Tokalji occupied we heard a distant murmur of voices in disagreement. Investigation proved the hall to be unoccupied, and we were presently grouped on its uneven floor, with only a curtain separating us from the drama going on in the atrium. The rain was drumming down overhead; the wind howled with undiminished force; and at intervals the thunder boomed like a barrage of 155s.
"No, you are wrong, Toutou, it is everybody's business," said Hilyer in French.
"You may be chief, but you have no right to risk common property," protested Sandra's resonant voice.
Toutou snarled something in his guttural, indistinct, animal speech.
"—like her, and that's enough," it concluded. "I'm tired of the rest of you. Bunglers, every one."
"Have it your own way," said Serge, "but it's not business. She's worth so much to us.'
"One might suppose you a green youth," cut in Maude Hilyer's frigid tones. "Why should you endanger our coup for a colorless chit like—"
"I say there is no risk," snapped Toutou. "What do I care for them? What does it matter what they—"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Hilyer, "but you Continentals don't appreciate the Anglo-Saxons' feeling about their women. You—"