“Open the door at once,” came in loud angry tones.
Putting my handkerchief to my mouth I yelled back a lot of muffled unintelligible gibberish. An altercation followed in which they continued to call to me to open and I replied with the same sort of rot and played with the bolts as if fumbling in an attempt to unfasten them.
In this way I gained two or three invaluable minutes, and a glance out of the porthole showed me that the Stella was coming up very fast.
Their impatience drove them to act at last; and the first blow was struck to force the way in.
“Wait. I’ll open it,” I shouted.
I drew the bolts and stepped back as a hail came across the water in Burroughs’ stentorian tones.
There are many ways of showing astonishment, and most of them were conspicuous as the door flew open and four men started to rush in and then jumped back from my levelled weapon.
“Well, gentlemen, I should like to know what the devil you mean by kidnapping me in this way,” I sang out and then, to their further astonishment, I burst out laughing.
If my life had depended upon my keeping serious, I could not have helped laughing at the ridiculous figures they cut. It was not so much their boundless amazement at seeing me instead of the king, nor their quick retreat from my weapon, but their general appearance which was so irresistibly comic.
They wore neither coat, waistcoat, nor collar, their trousers were rolled up to the knees, in their shirts of finest linen were gold studs and the sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, their boots were faultless in fit, all four wore gloves, and two of them carried pince-nez; while from the top to toe they were smothered in a mixture of machine oil, perspiration and coal dust.