CHAPTER XII
In the Hands of the Enemy
Some distance away, and seemingly on slightly higher ground, a light was shining, and a second light moved with a curious jerky motion and then disappeared.
The raiders knew that their safety depended on playing a tremendous game of bluff, and that before the news of their adventure spread.
Already a faint grey veil was creeping over the darkness, and at the end of several minutes they found themselves approaching a beech wood which clothed the base of a high hill, and saw that the stationary light came from a curious castellated building at the edge of the wood, where a rustic bridge spanned a swift stream. There was no one about, and the iron-bound door was open.
"Somebody's hunting-lodge," muttered Laval. "They have gone up the hill to see what the explosion meant. That was a lantern we saw moving among the trees."
"Well, it's nothing venture nothing have," said Dennis; and they went in noisily.
The walls of the hall were covered with boar spears and trophies of the chase, but they had scarcely time to glance round them when an old woman came forward out of the darkness with her hands raised.