"A wise fox!" agreed Peter Brutus, thickly. His lips were terribly swollen from King's final blow. "Tullis goes off chasing a jack-o'-lantern in the hills; Marlanx sits by and laughs at the joke he's played. It is good! Almost too good to be true. I wonder what our fine prisoner will say to it when the new prisoner comes to keep him company over the 26th."
CHAPTER XII
A NEW PRISONER ARRIVES
It was far past midnight when King was roused from the doze into which he had fallen, exhausted and disconsolate, an hour earlier. Sounds of unusual commotion reached him from the outer room. Instantly he was wide awake, breathing heavily in the sudden overpowering fear that he had slept for many hours and that the time had come for the conspirators to go forth. Was it the 26th?
Loud, quick commands came to his ears; the moving of eager footsteps; the drawing of bolts.
"They are here at last," he heard some one say. "God, this suspense has been horrible. But they are here."
"Stand ready, then, with the guns!" cried Peter Brutus. "It may be a trick, after all. Don't open that door down there, Spantz, until you know who is on the outside."
Then followed a long interval of dead silence.
"It's all right," came at last in the relieved, eager voice of Peter Brutus. "Clear the way, comrades. Give them room! By our Holy Father, this is a brave triumph. Ah!"