"We'll get him this time, Ned!" whispered Tom, and his chum understood.
Smiling with drunken vacuity, the guard had unlocked the door. The tray was heavy and he had had to set it down on a stool outside to do this and use both hands in carrying it into the cell.
"Now!" cried Tom suddenly, and he and Ned threw themselves on the unsuspecting fellow. Before he could utter a cry Tom clapped his hand over the guard's mouth and while he got a knee into the small of his back, Ned bound the struggling hands.
In a trice they had wound strips torn from their bed clothes around the man's ankles and improvised a gag which effectually silenced him. Then they trussed him up so he could not move and, having taken from his pockets a bunch of keys and a pistol, they were ready for their long deferred escape.
"Talk about luck!" panted Ned, for the capture had not been easy in spite of the fellow's drunken condition.
"We're not out of the woods just yet," cautioned Tom.
"Well, let's get out of this dungeon for a start," proposed Ned.
Then, having shoved the trussed guard under one of the cots, they arranged the clothes on both of them to make it appear that the prisoners were sleeping after their meal, and, having gone out by the door, they locked their gagged guard within and stole swiftly down the corridor.
They had to proceed cautiously, for they were unfamiliar with the interior of the castle and did not know at what moment they might run into Cunningham or some of his men. So they paused at every turn to look about them before advancing.
Twice, as they did this, they saw forms or heard through the gloom approaching voices and footsteps, and had to hurry back and secrete themselves. But at length they made their way up a flight of stairs, the same ones down which they had been taken after the exposure of Cunningham's masked face. They were now on the ground floor of the castle, where they had first been imprisoned.