Even as we heard their heavy, spurred feet clatter on those stairs we were seeking for some mode of escape, and that at once.
Alas! 'twas not to be out of the door again and down into the stone passage, as we had thought.
For one glance through a great crack, and we saw, by peering down below, that these Spanish alguazils had some method in their proceedings. They had left two of their number behind; they stood in the passage waiting for what might happen above; waiting, perhaps, to hew down the two fugitives whom those others were seeking for, should they rush down; waiting for us. There was no way there!
Then, for the room--what did that offer?
It was as dark as a vault--we could distinguish nothing--not even where the bed was--at first. Yet, later, in a few moments--while we heard, above, the rapping of sword hilts upon the door of the chamber we had just quitted--while we heard, too, the leader shouting: "Open. Open--Bandidos! Assassinatóres! Espias! or we will blow the lock off"--we saw at the end of the room a dull murky glimmer, a light that was a light simply in contrast to the denser gloom around--knew there was a window at that end.
Was that our way out?
Swiftly we went toward it--tore aside a curtain drawn across a bar--the noise the rings made as they ran seemed enough to alarm those men above, must have done so but for the infernal din they themselves were making--opened the lattice window--and, heaven help us!--found outside an iron, interlaced grate that would have effectually barred the exit of aught bigger than a cat!
We were trapped! Caught! It seemed as if naught could save us now!
"Lock the door," I whispered to Juan. "They will come here next. The moment they find we are not in the other room!--ha! they know it now, or will directly."
For as I spoke there rang the report of a musketoon through the empty passages of the house. They were blowing the lock off!