Without a word Bat rushed along the hall; the door of his room was open, and the soft man was gone. Then down the stairs went Bat, three at a leap. The plug still held in the bolt of the cellar door, so he was sure that the prowler had not gone that way. There was only one other way of escape. The gate! And when he reached the courtyard the gate stood wide; the watch dogs were running in and out, whining uncertainly and apparently still much excited.
Both Campe and the German soldier had pressed hard after Scanlon; and the young master of Schwartzberg was aware of the truth as soon as the big man.
“He’s gone,” said he, in a husky kind of way. “Gone!”
“Well, if he’ll only stay gone, it’ll be all right,” spoke Mr. Scanlon. “And while we’re thinking over the possibilities of that,” to Kretz, “suppose you shut the gate.”
The sergeant-major did as requested; at the order of young Campe, he mounted guard upon the wall once more, and then both Campe and Scanlon made a complete search of the castle; every nook and crevice was examined, but evidently if there had been others they had also taken occasion to depart with the opening of the portal.
“The gentlemen who are in the habit of visiting you,” remarked Mr. Scanlon to the master of Schwartzberg, “are very self-possessed, and have more than the usual share of grey matter. I never saw any one collection of persons with more up their sleeves than this lot appears to have.”
“They are cunning enough,” said the other; and there was a hopeless note in his voice. “Sufficiently so to get the better of me, at all events.”
“In a fight like this,” advised Mr. Scanlon, “never admit, even to yourself, that the opposition is on top of you. It has a bad effect. Even the best of us has no real liking for a bruising battle, if we get the bruising; and we’re only looking for an excuse to side step. And thoughts like those provide the excuse.”
At the cellar door Campe stopped.
“We’ll not venture into the vaults,” said he, in a tired way. His face had the sagged look which hopelessness brings, and his eyes were dull and weary. “It may not be safe.”