Chapter Twenty Two.
Two Boys in a Hobble.
Five men, headed by the heavy fellow who spoke in broken English, passed silently before the boys through the soft sand, their figures looking black against the beautiful light which seemed to play on the ceiling of the place. Then the leader stopped, and he gazed sharply round for a few minutes, his eyes seeming to rest for some time upon the sand which the boys had strewed over themselves and burrowed into as far as they could get.
Vince shivered a little, for he felt that it was all over and that they must be seen; but just as he had come to the conclusion that the best thing he could do would be for them to jump up and throw themselves upon the man’s mercy, the great broad-shouldered fellow spoke.
“Dere sall not be any mans here. Let us go up and see vat they do—how they get on.”
Apparently quite at home in the place, he walked to the foot of the slope, and for the first time saw the rope, and was told that it was not theirs.
“Aha!” he cried, “it vas time to come here and look. En avant!”
He seized the rope, and in spite of his size and weight he went up skilfully enough, the others following as actively as the boys would have mounted; and while Vince and Mike lay perspiring beneath the sand, they heard the next order come from the opening on high.
“Light ze lanthorn,” said the Frenchman sharply; and, trembling now lest the light should betray their hiding-place, the boys lay and listened to the nicking of the flint and steel, heard the blowing on the tinder, saw the faint blue gleam of the match, and then the gradually increasing light, as the wood ignited and the candle began to burn; but throwing the rays through into the cavern, they passed over the corner where the boys lay, making it intensely dark by contrast, and they breathed more freely as the dull sound of the closing lanthorn was heard and the Frenchman growled out—
“Vite! vite! I have to lose no time.”