“Two of those beggars that we charged in Cairo last night. They slunk off when they saw I’d spotted them.”
“Gracious, that’s nice! Look out, Herc! Now, you’ve done it.”
In his agitation, Herc had allowed the candle that he was carrying to slip from his fingers. The boys were plunged in total darkness. To make matters worse, they couldn’t, although they groped in every direction, recover the candle.
“Strike a match, Herc.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing I’ve got some.”
The light flared up and the boys looked down for the candle. But at the same instant something totally unexpected happened. They felt themselves seized from behind in such a manner that they were powerless to resist. Then they were rushed rapidly along by their captors.
“Let go!” roared Herc. “Let——”
That sentence was never finished. The earth appeared to drop from under Herc’s feet and he felt himself plunging into unknown, unlit space. Suddenly he struck something and knew that he was sliding at express speed down an almost perpendicular wall of rock as smooth as glass.
“Wow! I’m going fully sixty miles an hour! Where will all this end?” exclaimed the boy.
Hardly had the words left his lips when he landed with a crash at the foot of the slope and lay still. He didn’t dare to move for some minutes, thinking that he must be seriously injured.