Through this door we were to pass, and once without, the wilderness stretched before us. Save for famine, drouth, wild beasts, and roaming savages, we should be safe.
It was a wild and perilous enterprise, but we caught at it with eagerness. The very air of the Palace had grown heavy in my nostrils. I longed for freedom, as a shipwrecked mariner dying of thirst longs for water. Despite the thousand risks we ran, my heart beat high with hope. In secret I helped to pack the little store of food and drink that we were to take with us, and with due care I made our choice of weapons.
Then the hour came. The common danger knit us all closer together. Lestrade and I once more, as in the old days, clasped hands and wished each other luck. Astolba moved before us clad all in white. Zobo the Mighty led the way, his flickering torch casting grotesque shadows on the walls and floor of the underground passage. Sometimes this corridor narrowed suddenly, so that we had to crawl beast-like upon all fours for as much as fifty paces; then it arched high above our heads. I think we were all three captives strangely lighthearted. There was no presentiment of evil. We reached the outer entrance in safety, and in safety passed.
Smoothly, as runs a play, we escaped the multiform dangers that beset our every step. The guide was not too curious; the people of the Walled City gave way with respect before our priestly garments.
We found the hut without misadventure; and his duty done, our guide departed. A little later we had passed from its friendly shelter. A double line of overhanging trees screened us from the curious, but indeed, at that hour, there was none to question us. We were in an old garden, and it reached well-nigh to the City wall. When the sentinel should have passed, we in turn would step from beneath the shadow of the trees, and then the opened door and freedom!
My blood pulsed fast in my veins at the thought. I heard the guard go slowly onward. I whispered to Lestrade, “The White Dove has brought us liberty.”
Then I stepped out from the tree’s shelter, and at the same moment something dropped from the branches above my head. Two arms gripped me about the throat and a hoarse chuckle sounded in my ears.
“I am thy friend Hubla,” said the voice. “Back, you three! back to your kennel, or I call the guard!”
Chapter XVI
Zobo the Mighty Wrestles
I would have made a fight for it even then. Had Lestrade and I been alone, I would in truth have done so, but I knew that the sentinel was in easy call of his fellows, and Astolba’s presence held my hands.