"It is the midnight hour,
They wait us at the gate.
May Heaven its favors pour,
Then easy is our fate.
You seem to be a brave fellow like your brother; then now is the time to show your courage, and remember, also, that I can do all the talking for both of us. Talking is my great specialty."
It seemed to John that the stranger spoke in an odd manner, but he liked the sound of his voice, which was at once strong and kind. Why should he not like a man who had come through every imaginable danger to save him from a living death!
"My brother?" whispered John in his eagerness. "Is he still near?"
"I told you I was to do all the talking," replied the man. "You just follow and step as lightly as you can."
John obeyed, and, after a descent of a few steps, they came to one of the heavy wooden doors, twelve feet high, but the stranger unlocked it with a key taken from the folds of that invaluable Mexican garment, the serape.
"You didn't think I'd come on such a trip as this without making full preparations?" said the man with a slight humorous inflection. Then he added: "You're just a plain, common Mexican, some servant or other, employed about the castle, and you continue to slouch along behind me, who may be an officer for all one knows in this darkness. But first push with me on this door. Push hard and push slowly."
The heavy door moved back a foot or two, but that was all the stranger wanted. He slipped through the opening, and John came after him. Then the man closed and locked the door again.
"A wise burglar leaves no trail behind him," he said, "and, although it is too dark for me to see you very well, I want to tell you, Sir John of the Cell, that your figure and walk remind me a great deal of your brother, Sir Philip of the Mountain, the River, and the Plain, as gallant a lad as one may meet in many a long day."
A question, a half dozen of them leaped to John's lips, but, remembering his orders, he checked them all there.