“Come and parley with us, Mr. Hamel,” he begged. “You will not find us unreasonable.”
Hamel’s voice came back in reply, but Hamel himself kept well away from the opening.
“The conditions,” he said, “are unpropitious. A little time for reflection will do you no harm.”
The trap-doors were suddenly closed. Mr. Fentolin’s face, as he looked up, became diabolic.
“We are trapped!” he muttered; “caught like rats in a hole!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
A gleam of day was in the sky as Hamel, with Mrs. Fentolin by his side, passed along the path which led from the Tower to St. David’s Hall. Lights were still burning from its windows; the outline of the building itself was faintly defined against the sky. Behind him, across the sea, was that one straight line of grey merging into silver. The rain had ceased and the wind had dropped. On either side of them stretched the brimming creeks.
“Can we get into the house without waking any one?” he asked.
“Quite easily,” she assured him. “The front door is never barred.”