He moved the lever. A slight tremor—a widening of the crevice—in an instant he perceived that the massive jamb had retreated.
All was dark. He thrust forth his arm and touched the under-side of the thick hangings along the wall of the Purple Chamber. Then he slipped out beneath their folds, like a cat, and stood again in the great room itself—alone. Apparently no one, friendly or hostile, was on that second story as yet. Tiptoe he ventured toward the closed door, the outline of which he could trace.
But he caught his breath as he came to it and set it ajar with trembling caution. He had stolen forth from the Nest exactly as the bustle below, the voices, laughter, and singing culminated in the audacious demand by Captain Jermain that the mysterious secret-chamber be laid open for the diversion of himself and his companions. Boyd's protests he could not hear—nor see the scene at the table—nor guess how it had come about. He heard only the pushing aside of the chairs, the drunken march into the broad hall, the hoarse—
"King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the White Cockades!"
the reiterated cry: "Above-stairs, all of us! huzzah!"
The tone in which that drinking song was sung, those words uttered, assured him that it was not betrayal, but some new train of concurrent circumstances, that was bringing about a startling move. He dared not lock the door. He leaped back, stumbled headlong toward the chimney-piece, tossed aside the arras and threw himself within the Mouse's Nest, with the pant of a hunted stag. To seize the lever was the gesture of a half-second. He could bolt the panel to all outsiders as soon as it shut. Excitement guided his hand truly in the dark. He pushed and pressed. The panel slid obediently back toward its deceptive resting-place. In doing so it creaked slightly—an ominous occurrence that had not accompanied its previous passage. He tugged harder at the lever as, with the creak, something seemed to resist his hand.
Up the stairway was coming the tramp of the soldiers and the two Boyds. He could overhear more merriment. He pushed with all his might. It was useless labor. Within some three inches of closure, for its bolting, the mechanism operating from the within-side of the panel suddenly had refused to act. Everything stood still—perfectly, terribly still. A wide black crack must inevitably be visible to any person who should draw aside the arras of the chamber wall!
"I am lost if the villains have lighted on the secret of the Nest!" the endangered nobleman exclaimed, in sudden realization and despair. "Oh why, why did I not bethink me that I might not be able to close it—through some weakness of the old apparatus? The chase is up!"
The next moment the shine of candles below the folds of the arras—the loud banter and laughter of Jermain—broken sentences from Boyd—came all within a few yards' length, as the quintet stood within the Purple Chamber.