There was a grim earnestness about the tone which commanded belief.
“If it’s money you want——” gasped Mr. Temple, who was breathing heavily.
“Shut up,” said his guard. “Now march.”
With two guards to each, the four prisoners were shoved along the broken cobbles of the dim courtyard until a door in a wall was reached. Through this they entered a corridor even blacker than the courtyard behind. There were no lights. One of the guards, however, threw the rays of a flashlight ahead.
An iron door barred the way. A little wicket was
opened as the flashlight played over it, and a slanting almond eye stared out unwinkingly. The man with the flashlight advanced, uttered a word in a low voice that the boys could not overhear, and then the door was opened.
Down another pitch black corridor, several turns, and the party halted before a second door. The procedure was similar to that gone through with at the first door. Again they were admitted.
All this time, shuffling along in a silence broken only by an occasional stumble or muttered curse, on the part of one of the guards, they had been descending. It seemed to the boys as if they had stumbled down so many various flights of steps that they must be in the very bowels of the earth. At last a third door was opened, and Mr. Temple and the boys were shoved ahead accompanied only by the man who had been their guide and betrayer.
They stood in a dimly lighted room of Oriental magnificence.
Two men sat at a table. One was inscrutable. He was an old Chinaman. The other wore a sinister smile. He was the man of the train—“Black George.”