Part 29 (1/2)

Again, from afar, there seemed to come the faint response--”Hollo!”

And at the same instant he became conscious of voices speaking together outside the door of the cul-de-sac in which, foolishly enough, he had allowed himself to be made, for a second time, a prisoner.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MOST DANGEROUS FOR OF ALL

Mr. Paxton withdrew his face from the window. He turned towards the door, his ears wide open. The speakers were talking so loudly that he could hear distinctly, without moving from his post of vantage on the shelf, every word which was uttered. They seemed to be in a state of great excitement.

The first voice he heard belonged evidently to the quick-witted individual who had fastened him in the trap which he himself had entered.

”There he is--inside there he is--ran in of his own accord he did, so I shut the door, and I slipped the bolt before he knowed where he was.

The winder's only a little 'un--if he gets hisself out, you can call me names.”

The second voice was one which Mr. Paxton did not remember to have previously noticed.

”Blast him!--what do I care where he is? He ain't no affair of mine!

There's the Toff, and a crowd of 'em down there--you come and lend a hand!”

”Not me! I ain't a-taking any! I ain't going to get myself choked, not for no Toff, nor yet for any one else. I feel more like cutting my lucky--only I don't know my way across these ---- hills.”

”You ain't got no more pluck than a chicken. Go and put the 'orse in!

Me and them other two chaps will bring 'em up. We shall have to put the whole lot aboard, and make tracks as fast as the old mare will canter.”

A third voice became audible--a curiously husky one, as if its owner was in difficulties with his throat.

”Here's the Toff--he seems to be a case. I ain't a-going down no more.

It's no good a-trying to put it out--you might as well try to put out 'ell fire!”

Then a fourth voice--even huskier than the other.

”Catch 'old! If some one don't catch 'old of the Baron I shall drop 'im. My G.o.d! this is a pretty sort of go!”

There was a pause, then the voice of the first speaker again.

”He do look bad, the Baron do--worse nor the Toff, and he don't seem too skittis.h.!.+”

”Strikes me he ain't far off from a coffin and a six-foot 'ole. You wouldn't look lively if you'd had what he 'as. That there ---- brained 'im, and now he's been burned alive. I tell you what it is, we shall have to look slippy if we want to get ourselves well out of this. Them others will have to scorch--it's no good trying to get 'em out--no mortal creature could live down there--it'll only be a bit sooner, anyhow. The whole ---- place is like a ---- tinder-box. It'll all be afire in less than no time, and it'll make a bonfire as'll be seen over all the countryside; and if we was seen a-making tracks away from it, there might be questions asked, and we mightn't find that pretty!”

”Where's the ---- as done it all?”

”In there--that's where he is!”

”In there? Sure? My----! wouldn't I like to strip his skin from off his ---- carcase!”

”He'll have his skin stripped off from him without your doing nothing, don't you be afraid--and made crackling of! He'll never get outside of that--he'll soon be warm enough--burnt to a cinder, that's what he'll be!”

Suddenly there was a tumult of exclamations and of execrations, sound of the opening of a door, and of a general stampede. Then silence.