Yet, neither of these conclusions troubled us near so much as the thought that Rose Noble must know that there was a second entrance into the oubliette. This was a serious matter: for, now that he knew, he would not rest till he had found it, and, as if that were not enough, we had left him a definite clue. Rowley had covered our tracks as best he could, but he could not repair the door which Mansel had forced: its broken condition the thieves were bound to remark, and, the instant they saw it, they would know that the entrance they sought led out of the castle itself. “And so,” said Mansel, “it’s only a matter of time. It may take them a day or an hour: but in the end they’ll find it, and then the balloon will go up.”
Now, if we guarded the trap, though they found it, to force an entry that way might be very hard, for three men armed, in the darkness, could hold it against an army, similarly equipped. But what a man has done once, he will do again; and we had little doubt that, if we opposed their entry, they would at once resort to the use of that terrible weapon which they had already employed, that is to say, of bombs: and stand up to these we could not, if for no other reason, because against such an attack no man born of woman could hope to hold such a place. We could bar the postern of nights, we could set an electric alarm above the stile, we could keep watch: but more we could not do, and must try the fortune of war when the moment came. But Mansel decided that in future we must always go armed, even though we were working at the nose of the shaft.
It was then arranged that the next morning I should go to the culvert, and, taking the Rolls from Carson, send him back to the dungeon and myself drive to St. Martin for the last time.
“You see,” said Mansel, “at the moment we’re not up against Time: but I shouldn’t be surprised if we were, before the curtain comes down. Give me five minutes’ start, and I’ll be at Calais five hours before Rose Noble: but not if I’ve got to trip round, paying my bills. So we’ll do three more reliefs. When you’ve bade farewell to St. Martin, Hanbury can visit Villach; and then I can go to Salzburg and make all smooth and clear for us to withdraw. I think we should each go alone, because four’s none too many to hold the fort. And I think we’ll have Tester here: he’ll rather like this place, and he’ll be devilish useful, watching that trap.”
With that we talked no more, but went to work, Mansel and Hanbury to setting the electric alarm, and Rowley and Bell and I to driving the shaft.
Thirteen days had gone by since we had altered our course, and so well had we wrought in this time that but twenty-three yards lay between us and what we had come to call “live ground.” We gave it that name, because, though we knew it was surrounding the chamber, as a garden a house, we were far less certain where within it the chamber lay. We hoped and believed that, by holding straight on through this region, we should strike some part of the chamber before we had gone five yards: we were equally sure that, if we had not found it in nine, this would be because we had passed it; and, in such an event, we proposed to go no further, but to drive a new shaft at right angles through the middle of the live ground. We had made up our minds that this region was not more than nine yards square, and we steadfastly refused to consider that somewhere within its area the chamber did not lie.
Whether the progress we made was actually swift or slow I cannot fairly pronounce, for how six sextons would have fared, had they been set such a task, I cannot say. But what we lacked in experience, I think we made up in zeal: and, after all, digging is a simple, downright business, which one man, if he will, can soon do as well as another. Be that as it may, I do not think any men could have laboured more heartily than we had, since our brush with the tanner upon the ninth night of June. But now, since our life was to be less easy, we determined to cut our confinement as short as ever we could and to that end to redouble our efforts to reach our goal. We had not much hope of so doing before the thieves discovered the trap: but there was a chance that we might, and, faint though it was, this certainly spurred us on, for, although we were ready enough to show our teeth, once such a battle was joined, no one could possibly tell what the outcome would be.
And there, of course, the thieves had a valuable advantage: for, if one of them was wounded, the others would let him lie or die for want of attention, rather than care for him to the cost of their enterprise: but, if one of us was hurt and needed a doctor’s aid, everything else, of course, would go by the board.
In this sense the dice were loaded: and, though hitherto we had been most fortunate, this spectre always haunted each passage of arms that we had.
Full of these thoughts, we worked as hard as we could, and by the end of that day had actually advanced five yards, so that but eighteen remained between us and the live ground.
At one o’clock the next morning I left for the culvert, charged by Mansel
