“The two of us can do it, probably,” suggested Chick.
“That’s my idea. Once we get through that trap, I don’t know what we shall meet. We shall have to take chances on that. I’m going to start for Joyalita to-night.”
The calm confidence with which Prince Marcos said this delighted Chick.
Perhaps Chick liked it all the more because the tones of Marcos were so much like Nick Carter’s that in the deep gloom he had some difficulty in assuring himself that it was not his chief who was talking.
He could not help referring to it, however.
“You and Mr. Carter are more alike than any two persons I have ever seen in my life,” he blurted out. “Even your voices are the same.”
“So they tell me,” was the careless reply. “But let’s get out of this. I’ve got to get even with that scoundrelly cousin of mine, Miguel, and I’ll never do it till I am clear of this bad-smelling place. Come on, Chick!”
“There is a trapdoor in the corner of my cellar, just as there is in yours,” remarked Chick. “I guess that is the way they brought me in. But they took away the ladder with them. If they hadn’t, we might have gone that way, if this one of yours is too hard a proposition.”
Chick lifted the heavy door from the floor, and, with difficulty, extracted the blade of his jackknife.
Marcos was already on the ladder in his own cellar.