Durant seemed to forget himself in his excitement. He shook out his disheveled hair, his face working with passion, his thin lips curling back from his wolfish teeth, his hands extended like claws that seemed longing to fasten on the boy and rend him limb from limb.
Bornier made a move as if to grasp the fiery little wretch, and then held off, plainly in awe. But the proprietor of the Red Flag was agitated and alarmed.
“Remember one of them escaped,” he said. “Who can tell when he may return with the police? Are you all drunk, or are you mad? Take the spy away!”
“That is right,” bowed Lenoir. “We must lose no time in placing him where he will never be found by the police.”
“We shall place him where he will never again see the light of day,” declared Vaugirad, hoarsely.
“And send others there,” urged Bornier. “Not one of you must remain, but others must be here when the police come.”
“We will see to that.”
Then a gag was forced between Frank Merriwell’s teeth, where it was securely tied. This done, the boy was quickly enveloped in the smothering folds of a blanket, after which he was lifted and carried along by ready hands.
It seemed to the boy that he was taken from Bornier’s to the open air, and he fancied his captors passed along where their feet made echoes between crowding walls. Of this he was not sure, for the blanket was baffling, and it was with great difficulty that he breathed at all.
At length some steps were descended, and then he was flung down like a sack of wheat, striking with a shock on the hard ground. The blanket was rudely torn from him, and he heard the footsteps of his enemies retreating in the darkness.