"I see!" cried Quinnox. "It can be done! No one will be watching at that point."
The sky was overcast, the night as black as ebony. The four men left the officers' quarters at one o'clock, making their way to the historic old gate in the glen below the Castle. Arriving at the wall, Truxton briefly whispered his plans.
"You remember, Colonel Quinnox, that the stream is four or five feet deep here at the gate. The current has washed a deeper channel under the iron-bound timbers. The gates are perhaps two feet thick. For something like seven or eight feet from the bottom they are so constructed that the water runs through an open network of great iron bars. Now, Hobbs and I will go under the gates in the old-clothes you have given us. When we are on the opposite side we'll stick close by the gate, and you may pass our dry clothes out between the bars above the surface of the water. Our guns, the map and the food, as well. It's very simple. Then we'll drop down the canal a short distance and change our clothes in the underbrush. Hobbs knows where we can procure horses and he knows a trusty guide on the other side of the city. So long, Colonel. I'll see you later."
"God be with you," said Quinnox fervently. The four men shook hands and King slipped into the water without a moment's hesitation.
"Right after me, Hobbs," he said, and then his head went under.
A minute later he and Hobbs were on the outside of the gate, gasping for breath. Standing in water to their necks, Quinnox and Haddan passed the equipment through the barred openings. There were whispered good-byes and then two invisible heads bobbed off in the night, wading in the swift-flowing canal, up to their chins. Swimming would have been dangerous, on account of the noise.
Holding their belongings high above their heads, with their hearts in their mouths, King and the Englishman felt their way carefully along the bed of the stream. Not a sound was to be heard, except the barking of dogs in the distance. The stillness of death hung over the land. So still, that the almost imperceptible sounds they made in breathing and moving seemed like great volumes of noise in their tense ears.
A hundred yards from the gate they crawled ashore and made their way up over the steep bank into the thick, wild underbrush. Not a word had been spoken up to this time.
"Quietly now, Hobbs. Let us get out of these duds. 'Gad, they're like ice. From now on, Hobbs, you lead the way. I'll do my customary act of following."
Hobbs was shivering from the cold. "I say, Mr. King, you're a wonder, that's wot you are. Think of going under those bally gates!"