“And he came up,” said Mr. Diaz. “And here he can stay. And to-morrow, Luiz, we will board up this window so that neither Paul nor this inquisitive boy can signal to the other tiresome children. They must do without his company until Friday, when we take Paul somewhere that is not crowded out with curious children, who get themselves into trouble through poking their noses into somebody else’s business.”
“You will have to miss a little of your holiday,” said sleepy-eyed Luiz to Mike. “But Paul here will welcome your company, I am sure! Maybe this will teach you not to interfere another time in what is no business of yours!”
The two men went out of the tower-room, locked the door and bolted it. Mike shot to the window and leaned out.
“Jack! Jack!” he called in a low voice. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” said Jack from behind a bush. “What’s happened?”
“They’ve pulled up the ladder and made me a prisoner too,” said Mike. “But they don’t know you’re outside, Jack. Go back to the others and tell them and see if you can think of some idea to get us out. You won’t be able to signal to-morrow because this window is going to be boarded up. You’ll have to be jolly clever to rescue us. They are taking Paul away somewhere else on Friday and I expect they’ll set me free then; but we must be rescued before or we’ll never know where Paul has gone.”
Jack listened to this long whisper in silence. He was angry with himself for having let Mike go up the ladder. He might have thought that maybe someone was waiting up there to catch one of them. “All right, Mike, old chap,” he said. “I’ll get you both out somehow. Cheer up. I’m going back now.”
He slipped through the bushes to the wall. He climbed up a tree, whilst the dogs whined below, sad to see him go, and then dropped on to the top of the high wall. He jumped from there to the ground, took a quick look round to see if anyone was about and then tore off in the moonlight to Peep-Hole.
The girls were waiting for him, both in tears, for they had seen all that had happened through their field-glasses.
“Oh, Jack, oh, Jack!” wept Nora. “How can we get poor Mike back? Oh, why did you let him go up? We could see somebody waiting at the side of the window and we couldn’t warn you.”