Erda had the lamp on the ground in a second, and was beside it, her red-gold hair in the dust, as she peered through a three-inch iron grating between the iron-rimmed door and the iron lintel.
When she rose up her face was like the iron also.
"They've trapped us!" she whispered. "There is a sentry outside--I saw his feet. Come away, and let us settle what to do. And say something, something angry--you know what I mean."
"Damn that brute!" said Lance, cordially, in a loud voice, "where the deuce has the sentry gone to? I'll have it out with him to-morrow, the infernal--"
Erda, ahead with the lamp, turned to look back, and put her finger on her lips reproachfully. "That's quite enough," she said; but she said it with a smile. That vigorous delight in action which some women feel was making her blood race through her veins.
"Now what's to be done?" she said swiftly, as she put the lamp down on the mess table again. "Let's think hard."
The gate was closed against interference with--with--something!
That was evident. Proof positive, therefore, that Am-ma's tale was true.
So it followed that the most urgent need for help was at the gaol.
But how to reach it, and with whom?