“By the secret passage that we could not find.”
“But how? Where can it be?”
“I’ve been thinking, Ben. I don’t know for certain; but it must open into Master Pawson’s room.”
“And he let ’em through?”
“Yes; filling the corridors silently with troops while I slept.”
“The traitor! Then that was the signal, boy. Oh, my lad, my lad, why didn’t I kill him when I thought it must be he? What about repairing the stone gallows now?”
“I—don’t understand you.”
“The lowering of the flag, sir—the lowering of the flag.”
“Yes,” said the officer, who had advanced to them unobserved in the gloom of the archway; “that was the signal, sergeant. You were betrayed from within. Step out now with your men, like the brave fellow you are. Give me your hand; and let me tell you that I don’t believe I could have taken the place without.”