In a moment they had it out and between them on the desk. There it was, in all truth, written in two columns, Chinese on the one side, French on the other.
“Are you sure?” said Crabb.
“Sure! Sure as I’m a thief in the night!”
“Then sit and write, man. Write as you never wrote before. I’ll listen and watch Rameses the Second.”
In the twenty minutes during which Burnett fearfully wrote, Crabb stood listening at the doors and windows for sounds of servants or approaching carriages. The man swaddled in the sheets made a few futile struggles and then subsided. Burnett’s eyes gleamed. Other eyes than his would gleam at what he saw and wrote. When he finished he closed the document, removed all traces of his work, replaced it in the iron box and shut the lid. He dropped the precious sheets into an inner pocket and was moving toward the window when Crabb seized him by the arm. There was a step in the hallway without, and the door opened. There, stout and grizzled, his walrus mustache bristling with surprise, in all the distinction of gold lace and orders, stood Baron Arnim.
CHAPTER V
For a moment there was no sound. The burglars looked at the Baron and the Baron looked at the burglars, mouths and eyes open alike. Then, even before Crabb could display his intimidating revolver, the German had disappeared through the door screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Quick! Out of the window!” said Crabb, helping Burnett over the sill. “Down you go—I’ll follow. Don’t fall. If you miss your footing, we’re ruined.”