Boldly he took it out and offered it to the guard at the gate. Had there been any slip here Franz was ready to kill the sentry at once. But the latter was intent on getting what he supposed was an order permitting a squad of German soldiers to pass out. He took the document from Franz's shaking hand.
"It is too dark to read," spluttered the guard. "And my flashlamp is broken. Pass on!"
"Forward, march!" ordered Franz, in German. And how those words thrilled the prisoners! They filed past the sentry who had turned to go back into his little box. Then, as Bob, who brought up the rear, was about to go through the gate which the sentry had unlocked, something seemed to strike the guard as wrong.
"Your men have no guns, corporal," he said. "And to bring in prisoners——"
"Bah! An unarmed German is a match for any number of the swine-dogs!" returned Franz.
"Right! Pass on!" chuckled the guard.
And the prisoners were outside the gate!
[CHAPTER XXIII]
THE SECRET PACT
Jimmy and Roger, fighting in the cave with the Bixtons, never afterward could tell exactly how it happened. Certainly by all rules and regulations of personal encounters it ought to have been easy for the two scoundrels, physically comparatively fresh, as they were, to have overcome the Khaki Boys, who were well-nigh exhausted.