"Don't stop for buts!" cried Kilgore, fiercely. "Go see if you can sight Chick Carter. If he is still in the carriage, we are all right up to now. In six or eight minutes go down there and give him to understand that his interpreter wants him to come in here. Before you reach this room with him, we three will be back to help you turn him down. Do you understand?"
"Sure!" cried Venner, thrusting his weapon back in his pocket. "He cannot suspect that we have recognized Nick, and he'll come in, all right."
"Go, then! We'll be back here in six minutes."
Venner hastened to one of the front windows of the house and peered out toward the street. At that moment a flash of lightning, followed by the nearer roll of thunder, dispelled for an instant the intense gloom of the night.
A growl of profound satisfaction broke from Venner while he gazed, and he muttered exultingly:
"By Heaven! we're all right! He's waiting in the carriage, and Dalton is still on the box!"
Nick was being pushed out of a back door of the house, meantime, and then across the lawn and through the dark stable.
The ruffians who were hurrying him away did not stop there, however. Pylotte ran on ahead, while Kilgore and Matt Stall continued urging the detective across the grounds, making toward the old wooden mansion in which their secret plant was located.
It seemed to them the safest place in which to confine Nick, pending the delay in getting hands upon Chick.
Presently they came to a dry ditch, walled at each side, and originally built for draining the low meadows between the two estates. Into this they plunged, following it until they arrived near a wooden bulkhead in the foundation wall of the house. This was the secret way of entering, to which Cervera had referred the previous night.