But there was nothing to be seen but the empty room, the scuffle having obliterated all signs of the trap door.
“Whose house is this?” Don Rafael at length asked.
“Pancho Villa’s,” replied one of the men.
“Villa’s!” cried Don Rafael. “Villa’s! May the saints protect us! Let us go at once!”
A minute later Billie heard the retreating footsteps overhead and a couple of minutes later all was again still.
“I wonder what there is about Villa to scare Don Rafael in that way,” he thought. “The last I knew, he was trying to get Villa to join the revolution.”
It was too big a problem for Billie, and so instead of bothering about it he began to figure how he was going to get out.
“If the door could open to let me in,” he said aloud to himself, “it can open to let me out.”
“You are right!” replied a voice in Spanish from somewhere out of the darkness.
To say that Billie was not startled by the voice would be rather a strong statement, for brave as he was, such a happening tended to send several creepy chills up his back. He had retained his hold upon his knife as he fell, and his clasp upon it tightened considerably as he asked with all the courage he could command: