He rushed off, anxious to see whether Hamid had secured the back entrance.
"Hech! the fathead!" he exclaimed, when he saw that the cook had merely barred the door; and looked around for material for an effective barricade. In a recess near the stove lay a number of logs of wood. Dragging these out, he jammed them between the door and the opposite wall of the narrow passage.
"That will give them some work," he thought.
Then he rushed back to his friends. Forrester was still feverishly trying to discover how the Eye worked. Jackson was absent. Wing Wu, munching a patty, had just returned from a rapid run through the building.
"Well?" cried Mackenzie.
"Sir, I cannot find either doors or staircases," said the Chinaman.
"Any men?"
"None but the two priests on the floor."
"That's well. Hullo, Bob!"
Jackson was staggering in under a load of arms. The call to action had made a very different man of him.