Three minutes, perhaps, had elapsed since the first discovery and Miss Cochran’s return to the drawing-room; Ewen hoped, therefore, as he burst into that apartment, to find no one but the ladies remaining. To his dismay, however, they were all there, in a group against the wall on the right of the hearth. The writing-table had been pushed aside, Strickland was holding a candle close to a panel, and O’Sullivan seemed to be struggling with something in the carving of this. Lady Easterhall, looking incredibly old, was clinging to her great-niece, and the eyes of both were fixed agonisedly on the Irishman and his efforts. The Prince, though he too was watching O’Sullivan narrowly, appeared the most unconcerned of the five.
“Ah, Ardroy, it seems you were justified of your nervousness, then,” he observed coolly. “And the spring of the panel is unfortunately stiff. It is long, evidently,” he added in a lower tone, “since a lover left this house by that road!”
“The soldiers are at the door,” said Ewen in a stifled voice. His heart felt like hot lead within him; was all to end thus, so foolishly and so soon? The dull sound of battering came up from below.
“Let Miss Cochran try,” suggested the Prince. “I think it is rather skill than strength which is needed.” And O’Sullivan relinquished his place to the girl. He was very pale, and Strickland had obvious difficulty in keeping the candle upright.
“Isobel, Isobel, can ye no’ stir it?” exclaimed Lady Easterhall, wringing her old hands.
The girl’s slender fingers were striving with the boss of carved woodwork which concealed the spring. “O God!” she whispered, and shut her eyes. “Is there no other possible hiding-place——” Ewen was beginning in desperation when, with a loud grinding noise, the panel ran back, revealing a dark wall and the first few steps of a winding stair which plunged steeply downwards.
“Quick!” said O’Sullivan, seizing Strickland by the arm. “You first, to light the stair. Now, your Highness!” The Prince stepped through the aperture and O’Sullivan himself followed. But Ewen lingered a moment on the threshold of safety.
“Madam,” he said earnestly to the shaken old lady, “if I may advise, do not you or Miss Cochran stay a moment longer in this room! To be in your bedchambers retiring for the night, when the soldiers succeed in forcing an entrance, as I fear they will, is the best answer you can make to the charge of entertaining the Prince. Do not, I beg of you, be found here—for he has still to get clear of the house!”
“Ye’re richt,” said Lady Easterhall. The frozen terror had left her face now. “’Tis you hae had the wits all along, young sir! In wi’ ye! Noo, Isobel, pit tae the door—and then let’s rin for it!”
Behind Ewen came grinding and a snap, and he was left in almost complete darkness to find his way as best he could down the stair. Somewhere below he heard echoing steps and cautious voices, so the Prince and his companions were still in the house. There must, indeed, be a passage as well as a stair if one was to emerge into the West Bow right on the other side of it. For him there was no hurry; it was just as well to play rear-guard. He started leisurely to descend, feeling his way by the newel, and hoping that he would never again go through another five minutes like the last.