CHAPTER XXI

TRAPPED

Meanwhile, what had happened to Warrender?

On entering the cottage by way of the tunnel and the cellar, he went upstairs to make a careful survey of the surroundings, saw no sign of the enemy, and hurried across the island to the pram, in which he crossed the river unobserved. In less than ten minutes he was back at the cottage with the hammer and chisel taken from his motor-boat. As he was on the point of re-opening the trap, he found that the electric torch showed a much feebler light than before, and if it gave out before Mr. Pratt was brought away, the flight through the tunnel might be dangerously delayed. It seemed worth while to pay another rapid visit to the camp for the purpose of getting a small hand lamp or a couple of candles. Laying the hammer and chisel under the staircase, he went up again, once more crossed the island, found one candle in the motorboat, and returned without delay.

It happened, however, that as he left the cottage on this second journey, Rush and his big flat-faced companion were approaching it from the south. Unseen themselves, they caught sight of Warrender as he emerged from the entrance, watched him until he had disappeared into the thicket, waited a few minutes, then entered the cottage and descended to the cellar. They had no light, and Warrender had taken the precaution of carefully replacing the flagstone; but in his haste he had omitted to close the upright slab beneath the lowest step, leaving open the access to the handgrips. Rush was suspicious. The gap might have been left open, of course, by one of the confederates; on the other hand, it was possible that the secret passage had been discovered by the boy he had seen leaving the cottage. The boy might return, and Rush allowed his curiosity to delay the visit to the tower on which he had been summoned. It was an error of judgment that had important consequences.

He posted himself with his companion in a remote corner of the cellar, and waited.

Some ten minutes later, Warrender came down the steps. He flashed his torch to light the opening, retrieved the hammer and chisel, and laid them down on the flagstone while he inserted his arm in the gap to turn the hand-grips. All the time his back was towards the men lurking within twenty feet of him. As he sprawled over the stone, there was a sudden noise behind him. Hastily withdrawing his hand, he half rose, but too late. Seized by powerful hands and taken at a disadvantage, he was helpless. His torch fell into the gap, and in the darkness he was dragged up the stairs between his captors.

"Cotched 'en!" chuckled Rush, as they lugged him through the hall. "What'll we do with 'en, Sibelius?"

"Kill!" said the Finn. "Throw in river!"

"No, no, that won't do!" said Rush. "He bain't alone. There's the other young devils. It bain't safe. I think of my neck. No; we'll take 'en down to the hut and tie 'en up; he'll be out of harm's way there, and in a few hours it won't matter."

Like most Englishmen in speaking to a foreigner, he shouted, and the Finn warned him to speak more quietly: the prisoner would hear all he said.

"What do it matter?" laughed Rush. "Let 'en hear--by the time his friends find 'en we'll be far away. Curious 'tis, that we've cotched 'en the very last day. If it'd a been yesterday, we might have _had_ to kill 'en. We'll stuff up his mouth, though; t'others may be about."

Pulling Warrender's handkerchief from his pocket, he rolled it up, and thrust it between the lad's teeth. Warrender ruefully reflected that just in such a way had Jensen been gagged that morning. Then the men hauled him through the thicket towards the point of the island where Rush moored his boat.

"I say, Sibelius," remarked Rush, when they were half-way there, "I reckon we'd better not take 'en to the hut after all. 'Twill take time, and we don't know where his mates be. Better go and tell the boss all about it; he'd be fair mad if anything spoilt his game the last moment."

"What we do, then?" asked the Finn.

"We'll truss 'en up: plenty of rope in the boat; and put 'en in among the bushes. He'll be snug enough there."

He chuckled. Dismayed at the prospect opened before him, Warrender, who had hitherto offered no resistance, made a sudden dive towards the ground, at the same time throwing out his leg in an attempt to trip the bulkier of his captors. But though he succeeded in freeing one arm, and causing the Finn to stumble, he had no time to wrench himself from Rush's grip before the other man had recovered his balance and seized him in a clutch of iron.

"Best come quiet!" growled Rush, "or there's no saying what we might do to you. I've got a tender heart," he chuckled, "but my mate 'ud as soon kill a man as a rat."

Arrived at the boat, they threw him into the bottom, and the Finn held him down while Rush swiftly roped his arms and legs together. Then they carried him a few yards into the thicket, and laid him down in a spot where he was completely hidden from any one who might pass within arm's length of him.

"Now we'll traipse through to the tower," said Rush. "He'll take a deal of finding, I'm thinking!"

The men struck away towards the ruins, satisfied that their victim could not escape, and that his hiding-place was not likely to be discovered until discovery mattered nothing. They had not noticed, however, that while the trussing was in progress, Warrender's cap had fallen off, and now lay between two of the thwarts of the boat.

Pratt, hurrying along the tunnel with the hammer and chisel, and knowing that he was pursued, felt that he had done rightly in not making a prolonged search for Warrender. His sole pre-occupation now was the necessity of outstripping his pursuers by an interval sufficient to allow him time to block up their ingress to the tower. If Armstrong was still unmolested, and Mr. Pratt could be set free, the three were capable of dealing with the two men in the tunnel, and might make good their escape before Gradoff and his confederates at the tower door had any inkling of the true situation.

He soon understood that he was gaining on the men behind; but he presently became aware that, not far ahead of him, daylight seemed to have percolated into the tunnel. For a moment he was nonplussed until he remembered the dry well. It then occurred to him in a flash that some one must have removed the boards that had lain across the top of the well, and he was seized with a misgiving. Had Gradoff, unable to obtain admittance to the tower, bethought himself of this opening into the tunnel from above, and lowered one or more of his men, who had already made their way to the end, and perhaps overpowered Armstrong?

Taking advantage of the faint illumination of the tunnel, he quickened his pace. In a moment or two he saw to his consternation a man swing down the well, and on reaching the ground, begin to release himself from the rope that was looped under his arms. It was not a time for hesitation. Pratt dashed forward, flung himself against the man before he was free from the rope, and drove him doubled up against the wall. The man yelled; from the top of the well forty feet above them came excited shouts; and out of the tunnel behind sounded hoarse reverberating cries from the pursuers, who must have seen what had happened. Pratt plunged into the tunnel beyond, and, sprinting along with reckless haste, arrived in a few minutes breathless at the end, where the flagstone was still raised as he had left it.

He sprang up, slammed down the flagstone behind him, and let out a lusty cry for Armstrong to join him.

"They're after me--at least three of them!" he exclaimed, as Armstrong came leaping down the stairs. "Help me to lug these boxes on to the flagstone."

The crates and boxes ranged along the wall were empty, and their weight alone would not have sufficed to resist the pressure of determined men below. But the roof was low-pitched, and the boys saw that by piling box upon box they could create an obstruction which would defy all efforts to remove it. With feverish haste they dragged the boxes across the floor, and had already placed them one upon another when they heard footsteps beneath, and felt a movement of the flagstone.

"Another box will do it," said Armstrong. "You must heave it up while I stand on the stone."

He placed himself on the half of the stone that moved upwards as it revolved, and bore down with all his weight. Pratt pulled over a fourth box, and, standing on the projecting edge of that which formed the base of the pile, managed with some difficulty to shove it on to the top, where a space of no more than two or three inches separated it from the roof.

"Good man!" said Armstrong, stepping off the stone.

The pressure below raised it perhaps three inches, then it stuck.

"We'll put another pile on each side, to make all secure," said Armstrong. "Then I think we needn't worry."

With less haste they erected the buttress piles, listening grimly to the hoarse curses of Rush, and shriller cries from a foreigner by whose voice they recognised the Italian chauffeur. In a few minutes their work was done. Short of an explosion, nothing could dislodge the jam of boxes between the flagstone and the roof.

Panting from the strain of their exertions, they went up into the tower.

"Where's Phil?" asked Armstrong.

"I don't know," replied Pratt, going on to relate rapidly his discovery at the end of the tunnel.

"They've got him, I expect," said Armstrong. "Though I can't make out how they came to leave this hammer and chisel."

"What has happened here?" asked Pratt.

"Nothing. Gradoff and the others waited outside for a bit, talking quietly. I couldn't understand what they said. Then Gradoff sent the chauffeur towards the house, and by and by went off himself in the direction of the river, leaving the two strangers behind. Evidently he had sent the chauffeur for a rope. Perhaps he thought Jensen had drunk himself silly, and decided to let a man down the well--a much shorter way than going across to the island and entering by the tunnel. The fat's in the fire now. If we release your uncle we can't get him away."

"No," replied Pratt, looking through the chink in the boards. "Here they come: Gradoff, Rod, the Pole, the whole gang except the fellows below. It strikes me we are squarely trapped."

Looking towards the prisoner on the floor, Armstrong fancied he caught a malignant gleam in the man's eyes.

"On the whole," he said quietly, "I'm inclined to agree with you."