Five Have a Wonderful Time (15 page)

She wondered what the time was. It was pitch dark in the little room, of course. She stood up and was surprised to find that her legs were shaky. She staggered a few steps and then sat down again. But her legs soon felt better and she stood up once more. "Now to find my way out," she said. "How I wish I had a torch!"

She went carefully down the flight of stone steps that led down from the room, and then came to the wide passage that ran under the courtyard. She went along it, glad it was level, and then came once again to stone steps that led upwards. Up she climbed, knowing that she was going the right way, although she was in the dark.

Now she came to the small passage where she had to bend almost double, the one that ran through the centre of the thick outerwalls. Jo heaved a sigh of relief. Surely she would soon come to where the stone had fallen out and would be able to see daylight!

She saw daylight before she came to the place where the stone was missing. She saw it some way in front of her, a misty little patch that made her wonder what it was at first. Then she knew.

"Daylight! Oh, thank goodness!" She stumbled along to it and climbed up to the hole from which the stone had fallen. She sat there, drinking in the sunlight. It was bright and warm and very comforting.

After the darkness of the passages Jo felt quite dazed. Then she suddenly realized how very high the sun was in the sky! Goodness, it must be afternoon!

She looked cautiously out of the hole in the wall. Now that she was so near freedom she didn't want to be caught by anyone watching out for her! There was nobody. Jo leapt down from the hole and ran down the steep hillside. She went as sure-footed as a goat, leaping along till she came to the lane. She crossed it and made her way to the caravan-field.

She was just about to go over the stile when she stopped. Julian had said she was to go to the police. But Jo, like the other gypsy folk, was afraid of the police. No gypsy ever asked the police for help. Jo felt herself shrivelling up inside when she thought of talking to big policemen.

"No. I'll go to Uncle Fredo," she thought. "He will know what to do. I will tell him all about it."

She was going up the field when she saw someone strange there! Who was it? Could it be that horrid man who had tied her up? She had not seen him at all clearly, and she was afraid it might be. She saw that he was talking urgently to some of the fair-folk. They were listening politely, but Jo could see that they thought he was rather mad.

She went a bit nearer, and found that he was asking where Julian and the rest were. He was becoming very angry with the fair-people because they assured him that they did not know where the children had gone.

"It's the man they call Pottersham," said Jo to herself, and dived under a caravan. "He's come to find out how much we've told anyone about that Face."

She hid till he had gone away down the hillside to the lane, very red in the face, and shouting out that he would get the police.

Jo crawled out, and the fair-folk crowded round her at once. "Where have you been? Where are the others?

That man wanted to know all about you. He sounds quite mad!"

"He's a
bad
man," said Jo. "I'll tell you all about him — and where the others are. We've got to rescue them!"

Whereupon Jo launched into her story with the greatest zest, beginning in the middle, then going back to the beginning, putting in things she had forgotten, and thoroughly muddling everyone. When she ended they all stared at her in excitement, They didn't really know what it was all about but they had certainly gathered a few things,

"You mean to say that those kids are locked up in that tower over there?" said Alfredo, amazed. "And a spy is with them!"

"No —
he's
not a spy — he's a good man," explained Jo. "What they call a scientist, very, very clever."

"That man who left just now, he said he was a — a scientitist," said Skippy, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

"Well, he's a
bad
man," said Jo, firmly. "He is probably a spy. He kidnapped the good man, up in the tower there, to take him away to another country. And he tied me up too, like I told you. See my wrists and ankles?"

She displayed them, cut and bruised. The fair-folk looked at them in silence. Then Bufflo cracked his whip and made everyone jump.

"We will rescue them!" he said. "This is no police job. It is our job."

"I say, look — that scientitist comes back," said Skippy suddenly. And sure enough, there he was, coming hurriedly up the field to ask some more questions!

"We will get him," muttered Bufflo. All the fair-folk waited in silence for the man to come up. Then they closed round him solidly and began to walk up the hill. The man was taken with them. He couldn't help himself! He was walked behind a caravan, and before the crowd had come apart again he was on the ground, neatly roped by the rope-man!

"Well, we've got
you'
said the rope-man. "And now we'll get on to the next bit of business!"

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THE 'scientist', as Skippy persisted in calling him, was put into an empty caravan with windows and doors shut, because he shouted so loudly. When the snake-man opened the door and slid in one of his pythons the scientist stopped shouting at once and lay extremely still.

The snake-man opened the door and his python glided out again. But the man in the caravan had learnt his lesson. Not another sound came from him!

Then everyone in the camp held a conference. There was no hurry about it at all, because it had been decided that nothing should be done before night-time.

"If we make a rescue in the daylight, then the police will come," said Alfredo. "They will interfere. They will not believe a word we say. They never do."

"How shall we rescue them?" said Skippy. "Do we go through these strange passages and up steep stone stairs? It does not sound nice to me."

"It isn't at all nice," Jo assured her. "And anyway it wouldn't be sensible. The door leading to the tower-room is locked, I told you. And that man has got the key."

"Ah!" said Bufflo, springing up at once. "You didn't tell us that before! He has the key? Then I will get it from him!"

"I didn't think of that," said Jo, watching Bufflo leap up the caravan steps.

He came out in a minute or two and joined them again. "He has no key on him," he said. "He says he never had. He says we are all mad, and he will get the police."

"He will find it hard to get the police just yet," said Mrs. Alfredo, and gave a high little laugh. "He has thrown away the key — or given it to a friend, perhaps?"

"Well, it's settled we can't get in through the door that leads to the tower-room, then," said the snake-man, who seemed to have a better grasp of things than the others. "Right. Is there any other way into the room?"

"Only by the window," said Jo. "That slit-window there, see? Too high for any ladder, of course. Anyway, we've got to get into the courtyard first. We'll have to climb over the high castle wall."

"That is easy," said the rubber-man. "I can climb any wall. But not, perhaps, one so high as the tower wall."

"Can anyone get into or out of the slit of a window?" asked Bufflo screwing up his eyes to look at the tower.

"Oh, yes — it's bigger than you think," said Jo. "It's very
deep -
the walls are so thick, you see — though I don't think they are so thick up there as they are down below. But Bufflo, how can anyone get up to that window?"

"It can be done," said Bufflo. "That is not so difficult! You can lend us a peg-rope, Jekky?" he said to the rope-man.

"Yes," said Jekky. Jo knew what that was — a thick rope with pegs thrust through the strands to act as footholds.

"But how will you get the peg-rope up?" said Jo, puzzled.

"It can be done," said Bufflo again, and the talking went on. Jo suddenly began to feel terribly hungry and got up to get herself a meal. When she got back to the conference everything was apparently settled.

"We set off tonight as soon as darkness comes," Bufflo told her "You will not come, Jo. This is man's business."

"Of course I'm coming!" said Jo, amazed that anyone should think she wasn't. "They're my friends, aren't they? I'm coming all right!"

"You are not," said Bufflo, and Jo immediately made up her mind to disappear before the men set off and hide somewhere so that she might follow them.

By this time it was about six o'clock. Bufflo and the rope-man disappeared in Jekky's caravan and became very busy there. Jo went peeping in at the door to see what they were doing but they ordered her out.

"This is not your business any more," they said, and turned her out when she refused to go.

When darkness came, a little company set out from the camp. They had searched for Jo to make sure she was not coming, but she had disappeared. Bufflo led the way down the hill, looking extremely fat because he was wound about with a great deal of peg-rope. Then came Mr. Slither with one of his pythons draped round him. Then the rubber-man with Mr. Alfredo.

Bufflo also carried his whip though nobody quite knew why. Anyway, Bufflo always did carry a whip, it was part of him; so nobody questioned him about it.

Behind them, like a little shadow, slipped Jo. What were they going to do? She had watched the tower-window for the last two hours, and when darkness came she saw a light there — a light that shone on and off, on and off.

That's Dick or Julian signalling, she thought. They will have wondered why I haven't brought help sometime today. They don't know that I was captured and tied up! I'll have something to tell them when we're all together again!

The little company went over the stile, into the lane and up the path to the castle. They came to the wall. The rubber-man took a jump at it, and literally seemed to run up it, fling himself on to the top, roll over and disappear!

"He's over," said Bufflo. "Wha't it is to be made of rubber! I don't believe that fellow ever feels hurt!"

There was a low whistle from the other side of the wall. Bufflo unwound a thin rope from his waist, tied a stone to it and flung it over. The rope slithered after the stone and over the wall like a long thin worm.

Thud! They heard the stone fall on the ground the other side. Another low whistle told them that the rubber-man had it. Bufflo then undid the peg-rope from his waist, and he and the others held out its length between them, standing one behind the other. One end was fastened to the thin rope whose other end held the stone.

The rubber-man, on the other side of the wall, began to pull on the thin rope. When all the slack was taken in, the peg-rope began to go up the wall too, because it was tied to the thin rope and had to follow it! Up went the peg-rope and up, looking like a great thick caterpillar with tufts sticking out of its sides.

Jo watched. Yes, that was clever. A good and easy way of getting over the thick high wall. But to get the peg-rope up to the slit-windew would not be so easy.

A whistle came again. Bufflo let go the peg-rope, and it swung flat against his side of the wall. He tugged it.

It was firm. Evidently the rubber-man had tied it fast to something. It was safe to go up. It would bear anyone's weight without slipping down the wall.

Bufflo went up first, using the pegs as foot-holds and pulling himself up by the rope between the pegs. Each of the men was quick and deft in the way he climbed. Jo waited till the last one had started up, and then leapt for the rope too!

Up she went like a cat and landed beside Bufflo on the other side of the wall. He was astounded and gave her a cuff. She dodged away, and stood aside, watching. She wondered how the men intended to reach the topmost window of the high tower. Perhaps she would be of some help. If only she could be!

The four men stood in the moonlight, looking up at the tower. They talked in low tones, while the rubber-man undid the thin rope from the peg-rope, and neatly coiled it into loops. The peg-rope was left on the wall.

Jo heard a car going up the lane at the bottom of the castle hill. She heard it stop and back somewhere. Part of her attention was on the four men and the other part on the car.

The car stopped its engine. There was no further sound. Jo forgot it for a few minutes, and then was on the alert again—was that voices she heard somewhere? She listened intently. The sound came again on the night air

— a low murmur that came nearer.

Jo held her breath — could that horrid man — what was his name — Pottersham—could he have arranged for his equally horrid friends to fetch Mr. Terry-Kane, and all the children out of the tower that night, and take them off to the coast? Perhaps they had already hired a fishing-boat from Joseph the old fisherman, and they would all be away and never heard of again!

So the thoughts ran in Jo's alert mind. Mr. Potter-sham would have had plenty of time to get fresh orders, and arrange everything before he had gone to the camp and got himself locked up in a caravan! Oh dear — dare she go and warn her Uncle Alfredo, where he stood in the moonlight, holding a little conference with the others?