Chick was inside the house by this time, and he came to the conclusion, as he saw stone steps in front of him leading to an upper floor, that wood was rather a scarce article in this country.
He had observed that the flooring of the rooms in the palace were all of stone, and that the fronts of the houses were of the same substance.
This made the houses all strong, and when he had got to the top of the flight of steps—which were built about the same way that wooden stairs are made in America—he was not sure whether this building was a prison or not.
It was a little dark on the landing, and he stumbled over something soft that lay in a dark corner. It was the body of a man.
As Chick’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw that two other men, in the uniform of the guards, were also stretched out, senseless, on the stone flooring.
It did not take Chick long to understand.
“The Arnolds have come up here and surprised them,” he muttered. “Now, where are the Arnolds?”
The answer came in an unexpected way.
A door at the end of the wide corridor in which he found himself burst open, and a man came dashing out at full speed, holding to his breast a sack full of something that he seemed to prize very highly.