"We ought to have got hold of the last booty before now!"
"Impossible! Mole-Skin and I have not figured out all the directions from the book and the numerals yet. It is not an easy task, I tell you, but it shall be done soon, and we can take you straight to the spot as soon as we have the directions before us."
"Unless Silver-Leg and Madame remove the booty in the meanwhile," grunted one of the party caustically.
"I sometimes wonder——" said another. But he got no further. A peremptory "Hush!" from Hare-Lip suddenly silenced them all.
With a swift movement one of them extinguished the lanthorn, and now they cowered in absolute darkness within their burrow like so many wild beasts tracked to earth by the hunters. The heat was suffocating: the men vainly tried to subdue the sound of their breath as it came panting from their parched throats.
"The police!" Hare-Lip muttered hoarsely.
But they did not need to be told. Just like tracked beasts they knew every sound which portended danger, and already from afar off, even from the very edge of the wood, more than a kilomètre away, their ears, attuned to every sound, had perceived the measured tramp of horses upon the soft, muddy road. They cowered there, rigid and silent. The darkness encompassed them, and they felt safe enough in their shelter in the very heart of the woods, in this secret hiding-place which was known to no living soul save to them. The police on patrol duty had often passed them by: the nearest track practicable on horseback was four hundred mètres away, the nearest footpath made a wide detour round the thicket, wherein these skulking miscreants had contrived to build their lair.
As a rule, it meant cowering, silent and motionless, inside the burrow whilst perhaps one posse of police, more venturesome than most, had dismounted at the end of the bridle-path and plunged afoot into the narrower track, scouring the thicket on either side for human quarry. It involved only an elementary amount of danger, distant and intangible, not worth an accelerated heart-beat, or even a gripping of knife or pistol wherewith to sell life and liberty at a price.
And so, for the first five minutes, while the tramp of horses' hoofs drew nearer, the men waited in placid silence.
"I hope Silver-Leg has found shelter," one of the men murmured under his breath.