Plunk and Tallow and Rock saw it, but they had sense enough not to waggle back. They knew Jethro might see them. So they just nodded their heads and made believe they was looking at something else.
“Now,” says Mark, “we’ll give ’em their orders.”
“How?” says I.
“Write ’em,” says he, “and chuck ’em over.” He got out his pencil and wrote a note that said:
Faithful Knights:—The Knight Binney and me is safe. Our presence hain’t known, and we got to talk with the prisoner Pekoe. In the tower where we’re hid we found other secrets that is important to the young Duke. Tell him his father’s alive, and is a great man, so the prisoner Pekoe says. We hain’t going to escape till we see if we can get past the men-at-arms and the bad Knight Jethro, and hunt around in the dungeons under this castle to find out what the writing left by the Earl Wigglesworth leads to. You faithful knights stick around till you hear from us, but don’t be seen. If we don’t show up by midnight, you better wake up Lawyer Jones and tell him what has happened, and for him to come out with his men-at-arms to rescue us. If you hear three whistles inside go and bang like everything on the front door and holler fire. All in the young Duke’s service,
Mark Tidd, Knight
Then he folded it and, making sure Jethro wasn’t watching, let it flutter over the edge. It fell to the grass quite a ways off and pretty soon we saw the knights and the young Duke go over to it, and Tallow put his foot on it. After a while he sat down, and we saw him stuff it in his pocket. Then they all went over to the arbor and out of sight. We knew they were reading the note, and that they would stick just like Mark told them.
CHAPTER XX
About all we could do now until Jethro was safe in bed was to sit around and wish he’d go early. If I was going to pick out the worst job in the world, it would be a waiting job. I don’t know why it is, but when you’re waiting time goes along about a dozen times as slow as it does any other time. If it hadn’t been for Mark Tidd and his make-believes I guess I’d have gone plumb crazy.
“Say,” says I, after a while, “I know there’s some sort of a mystery about Rock, but what d’you s’pect it is? From them photographs you was so glad to find I guessed maybe you figgered he was Mr. Wigglesworth’s son.”