"My gosh, Bill," said Milton Rhodes, "your imagination goes like a jumping-jack!"
"Heaven help us if that's what you think when a man would be cautious and watchful!"
"Cautious and watchful. Yes, certainly we want to be cautious and watchful. After all, there may be something in what you say.
"But," he added the next moment, "not much, I think. No, Bill. This is not a trap. There is no faking about it: the Dromans are lost."
"I don't like it," I told him. "Why don't they come on in?"
"Goodness knows, Bill. Why won't some people sit down to a table if the party numbers thirteen? And why should we stand hesitant? Suppose that they do plan to steal away from us. I don't believe it, but suppose that they do. What then? Are we going to run after them, like lambs after little Bopeep? Not I, old tillicum. If they are as treacherous a lot as that, the quicker we part company the better. For, sooner or later, their chance would come."
"There may be something in that," I admitted. "Lead on, Macduff."
A moment or two, and we had stepped from the passage and out into a great and lofty chamber.
"Great Heaven!" I cried, my right hand going to my revolver. "What—what is that thing?"
Rhodes made no answer. He stood peering intently.