The two men had passed them now, passed within six yards, and yet had missed them. They were now groping a little way ahead, looking for secret signs and marks lest they should be hoist upon their own petard.
"Donner und Blitzen! Have you found it yet, Fritz?" called the professor a little louder to his friend.
"Here it is, Professor! Be careful ... there are six wires already laid for those verdammt Englishmen, Keane and--what is the name of the other?"
"Sharpe!" rapped out the professor, as though he had known the man all his life.
At these words the two Englishmen looked at each other in blank amazement. And before their astonishment could subside, the opportunity which had been given to them of ridding the world of two great conspirators had passed.
"One--two--six!" they heard the mechanic say, as he helped the professor over the deadly maze, scarcely fifteen yards in front of them, and then their dark forms had merged into the trees and disappeared, their voices becoming fainter and fainter.
"Great Scott!" gasped Sharpe, when he recovered from his astonishment; "we've walked right into the hornets' nest."
"We should have done if we'd gone another fifteen yards," replied Keane, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
"Fortunate you had that presentiment of impending danger," said his friend.
"We should have been lying dead and half grilled over his deadly wires but for that strange, weird feeling of mine," replied Keane.