But in a flash Rob had clapped his hand over the garrulous black’s capacious mouth. Jumbo’s first fear that his last hour had come was speedily relieved as he saw who it was.
Rob, after a quick look about, assured himself that Jumbo’s words had not aroused any of the sleepers. Then, taking his hand from the negro’s lips, he quickly slashed his bonds. In another instant Jumbo, too, was at liberty.
“Wha’ you go fo’ ter do now, Marse Blake?” he whispered.
“Hush! Not a word. Follow me,” breathed the boy.
“Dis suttingly am a pawtuckitus state of affairs,” muttered the black, “don’ see no mo’ how we can git out uv this lilly place dan er fly kin git out of a mo’lasses bar’l.”
However, he followed Rob, who, on tip-toe, approached the clump of bushes where he knew the wire he had observed that afternoon lay hidden. With beating pulses he poked about in the scrub-growth till, suddenly, his fingers encountered the filament of metal. The most dangerous step of their enterprise still lay before him. What would happen when he pulled it? Would the ladder come down with a crash that would awaken their foes, or——
Rob lost no time in further indulging his nervous thoughts, however. He gave the wire a good hard tug. Simultaneously, from out of the blackness above them, something came snaking down. Rob dodged to avoid it.
He could have cried aloud with joy as, in the faint glow cast by the fire, he saw that, right in front of him were the lower rungs of a rope ladder. It was padded at the bottom so that its descent, abrupt as it had been, was almost noiseless. Rob noted, too, with inward satisfaction, that the ropes seemed strong and in good condition.
“Up with you, Jumbo,” he ordered in a tense, low whisper.
The black turned almost gray with apprehension.