“We’ve got him,” muttered Archie, triumphantly.
“Why, he’s here, all right,” I replied in a low tone, “but in order to reach the place we must creep along the wall, so as not to get lost.”
“Come ahead, then,” said Joe, and started feeling his way by keeping one hand on the tapestry hangings that separated the various alcoves.
Suddenly there came a violent rattling of metal near at hand and Joe stopped so abruptly that I ran into him.
“Say, fellows; we can’t pass this alcove,” warned Joe. “That infernal monkey might reach out and grab us if we came too near.”
“Light the lamp,” said I, “and hold it under your coat. Mai Lo is in an alcove and he’s too busy to notice us at this distance.”
Joe obeyed. As the light of the wick illuminated our surroundings we found we had halted none too soon. The huge ape had his body pressed close to the grating, which, to our astonishment, we saw was now a mass of twisted and bent metal, so loosened and displaced by the constant wrenching of the powerful beast that only the chain and lock with which we had fastened it seemed to hold the grating in place.
“He’ll be out of there before long,” remarked Joe, half fearfully.
“Then we must dive into some alcove,” I suggested. “But I guess the bars will hold until we’ve had our talk with Mai Lo.”
Circling around the place so as to avoid the reach of the ape’s long arms we came to the tapestries beyond his den and continued our progress, extinguishing the light as we drew nearer to the alcove from whence came the glimmer we had first observed.