CHAPTER VIII.
A WATCHFUL ENEMY.
“How have they got you?” asked Chick, after a short silence. “Could we not make a break to get out together?”
“If we could get this door down between us, we might,” answered Marcos. “It doesn’t look so very strong. But I can’t find any lock. Are there bolts on your side?”
“No. I can’t find anything that feels like a fastening,” replied Chick. “Wait a moment! Here’s something. I see! The door is nailed shut. There are four or five spikes hammered in around the door. If I had a good stout clawhammer——”
“Sorry I can’t help you,” came from Marcos, together with the faint odor of a cigarette. “I don’t usually carry a clawhammer as part of my equipment. Unfortunately, I haven’t anything that might take its place—not even a knife.”
The word “knife” gave Chick an idea. He had a jackknife, in the handle of which were many useful tools. There was no regular nail puller, but one of the implements in the handle was a small pair of highly tempered steel pliers, with serrated edges. They could be used for pulling nails of ordinary size.
The nails holding the door were very large and heavy. Indeed, they were, as Chick had called them, spikes, rather than nails.
“I’ll try what I can do,” announced Chick, through the hole in the wall. “I’ve got a pair of pincers that may do the work, because the wood is so rotten. But I’m not sure.”
“If I can help at all, by kicking the door, or throwing my weight against it, you can command me,” observed Marcos. “We have to get out of this place to-night somehow. I am so confident that your chief, Carter, will do it, if we don’t release ourselves, that actually I am not particularly worried.”
“You are the real goods,” exclaimed Chick admiringly. “I’m going to help you, and I believe we’ll make it. If we don’t, then you can bet on Nick Carter. Here goes for the spikes!”
It took a long time for Chick to get out the first spike, but he conquered the second one much quicker.
He had to use the biggest blade of his knife to cut away the wood around the spikes, as well as the steel pliers. But he persisted, and victory came in each case.
With all his energy, it was two hours before Chick had drawn out the last of the heavy spikes.
Then he could not move the door. There were slats of wood nailed in on both sides.
That meant another hour.
He had been encouraged through his work by Marcos, who smoked cigarettes incessantly, and occasionally begged Chick to accept one through the hole in the wall.
But Chick was not much of a smoker at any time. Just now, when he was earnestly at work, he could not be bothered with a cigarette or anything else in the smoking line. So he thanked the prince and declined until both should be outside.
Everything which appeared to hold the door was out of the way at last, and Chick felt that the moment for decisive action had come.
“I’ll get a hold on this side with my knife,” he told Marcos. “When I say ‘Shove!’ put all your weight against the door, and I’ll pull at the same time. Understand that?”
“Perfectly!” was the prince’s drawling reply.
Chick drove the big blade of his knife diagonally into the wood, point downward, until it held firmly. This gave him some power to pull, although not so much as he would have liked.
“I can’t help much,” he explained. “You’ll have to do most of it by your weight. Now! Let her go!”
Chick tugged at the handle of the knife, and, at the same instant, Marcos charged against the door with one of his brawny shoulders. He used all the weight and power he could throw into the effort.
There was a cracking, followed quickly by a smash, and down came the ponderous wooden door to the ground.
Chick jumped out of the way just in time to avoid going down underneath. He had been prepared for the sudden falling of the heavy mass of wood, and had timed his movements exactly.
As the door went down, Marcos walked through the opening and held out his hand to Chick. The two men shook hands gravely.
“Infernally dark in here!” observed Marcos. “But I don’t think it is night yet.”
“No,” returned Chick. “I wish it were. We should have a better chance of getting away. What is your plan? I suppose you have one?”
“Certainly!” answered Marcos, with his customary coolness. “There is a ladder in the far corner of my cellar. At the top is a trapdoor. I have tried to open it. I can make it crack and strain, but I haven’t quite enough strength to push it up altogether.”
“The two of us can do it, probably,” suggested Chick.
“That’s my idea. Once we get through that trap, I don’t know what we shall meet. We shall have to take chances on that. I’m going to start for Joyalita to-night.”
The calm confidence with which Prince Marcos said this delighted Chick.
Perhaps Chick liked it all the more because the tones of Marcos were so much like Nick Carter’s that in the deep gloom he had some difficulty in assuring himself that it was not his chief who was talking.
He could not help referring to it, however.
“You and Mr. Carter are more alike than any two persons I have ever seen in my life,” he blurted out. “Even your voices are the same.”
“So they tell me,” was the careless reply. “But let’s get out of this. I’ve got to get even with that scoundrelly cousin of mine, Miguel, and I’ll never do it till I am clear of this bad-smelling place. Come on, Chick!”
“There is a trapdoor in the corner of my cellar, just as there is in yours,” remarked Chick. “I guess that is the way they brought me in. But they took away the ladder with them. If they hadn’t, we might have gone that way, if this one of yours is too hard a proposition.”
Chick lifted the heavy door from the floor, and, with difficulty, extracted the blade of his jackknife.
Marcos was already on the ladder in his own cellar.
Chick found that his companion had rightly estimated the weakness of the trapdoor. When they had both climbed the ladder, so that they could put their hands against it together, they made it yield a little at the very first effort.
“Wait till I cut the wood away around the hinges,” suggested Chick. “It’s pretty rotten, and it is there that it will give way, if anywhere.”
Two minutes sufficed for this work. The knife was very sharp, as well as heavy, and Chick handled it deftly.
“She’ll go now!” he declared confidently, as he returned the knife to his pocket. “Now! Together!”
Up went the trap, breaking away from the hinges.
At the same instant, somebody pulled Marcos through the opening and shut the trap down with a bang, knocking Chick off the ladder!
He fell to the ground on his head, and lost consciousness.
When he came to his senses, the cellar was darker than it had been before, and he found himself tightly bound, hand and foot.
There was a foul odor coming from somewhere, which seemed to tighten his chest so that he could hardly breathe.
“Ammonia!” gasped Chick, and became senseless again.