Five Have a Wonderful Time (17 page)

"You can't behave like this, Pottersham," began Terry-Kane, but he was cut short.

"We've no time to lose. We're taking you, Terry-Kane, and one of the kids. We can use him for a hostage if too much fuss is made about your disappearance. We'll take this boy," and he grabbed at Dick. Dick gave him a punch on the jaw immediately, thanking his stars that he had learnt boxing at school. But he at once found himself on the floor! These men were not standing for any nonsense. They were in a hurry!

"Get him," said Pottersham, to one of the men behind him, and Dick was pounced on. Then Terry-Kane was taken too, and his arms held behind him.

"What about these other kids?" he said, angrily. "You're surely not going to lock them up in this room and leave them."

"Yes, we are," said Pottersham. "We're leaving a note for the old turnstile woman to tell her they're up here.

Let the police rescue them if they can!"

"You always were a…" began Terry-Kane, and then ducked to avoid a blow.

Timmy barked madly all the time, and almost choked himself trying to get away from George and Julian. He was mad with rage, and when he saw Dick being roughly treated he very nearly did manage to get loose. "Take them," ordered Pottersham. "And hurry. Go on — down the steps with them."

The three men forced Terry-Kane and Dick to the stone stairs — and then everyone shot round in astonishment! A loud voice suddenly came from the window!

Anne gasped. Bufflo was there! He hadn't been able to understand why nobody came down the peg-rope, so he had come up to find out. And to his enormous surprise there appeared to be quite an upset going on!

"Hey there! WHAT'S UP?" he yelled, and slid into the room, looking most out of place with his mop of yellow hair, gay checked shirt and whip!

"BUFFLO!" shouted all four of the children, and Timmy changed his angry bark to a welcoming one. Terry-Kane looked on in astonishment, his arms still pinioned behind him.

"Who in the world is this?" shouted Pottersham, alarmed at Bufflo's sudden appearance through the window.

"How did he get through there?"

Bufflo eyed the gun in Pottersham's hand and lazily cracked his small whip once or twice. "Put that thing away," he said, in his drawling voice. "You ought to know better than to wave a thing like that about when there's kids around. Go on — put it away!"

He cracked his whip again. Pottersham pointed the gun at him angrily. And then a most amazing thing happened.

The gun disappeared from Pottersham's hand, flew right up into the air, and was neatly caught by Bufflo!

And all by the crack of a whip!

Crack! Just that — and the gun had been flicked from his hand by the powerful lash-end — and had stung Pottersham's fingers so much he was now howling in pain and bending double to nurse his injured hand.

Terry-Kane gasped. What a neat trick — but how dangerous! The gun might have gone off. Now the tables were indeed turned, for it was Bufflo who held the gun, not Pottersham. And Pottersham looked very pale indeed!

He stared as if he hardly knew what to do. "Let go of them," ordered Bufflo, nodding his head towards Terry-Kane and Dick. The three men released them and stood back.

"Seems as if we got to get the police after all," remarked Bufflo, in a perfectly ordinary voice, as if these happenings were not at all unusual. "You can let that dog go now, if you want, Julian."

"No! NO!" cried Pottersham in terror — and at that moment the moon went behind a cloud, and the tower-room was plunged in darkness — except for the lantern that Pottersham had set down on the floor when he had first arrived.

He saw one slight chance for himself and the others. He suddenly kicked at the lantern, which flew into the air and hit Bufflo, then went out, and left the entire place in pitch darkness. Bufflo did not dare to fire. He might hit the wrong person!

"Set the dog loose!" he roared — but it was too late. By the time Timmy had got to the door, it was slammed shut — and a bolt was shot home the other side! There was the sound of hurried steps slipping and stumbling down the stone stairway in the dark.

"Hrrr!" said Bufflo, when the moon came out again, and showed him the astonished and dismayed faces of the five in the room. "We slipped up somewhere, didn't we? They've gone!"

"Yes. But without
us
," said Terry-Kane, letting Dick untie his arms. "They've probably gone down through those passages. They'll be out before we've escaped ourselves, more's the pity. And now we've got to try this rope-trick down the tower wall, seeing that the door is locked!"

"Come on, then," said Julian. "Let's go before anything else happens." He went to the window, slid to the outer edge, and took hold of the rope. It was perfectly easy to climb down, though it wasn't very pleasant to look below him into the courtyard. It seemed so very far away.

Ann went next, very much afraid, but not showing it. She was quite a good climber so she didn't find the rope difficult. She was very, very glad when she at last stood safely beside Julian.

Then came George, with a bit of news. "I can't think what's happening to the four men," she said. "They still seem to be about — and they're yelling like anything. It sounds as if they are rushing round that gallery that runs along the walls of the tower-room below."

"Well, let them," said Julian. "If they stay there long enough, we'll have time to go to the hole in the outer wall, and wait for them to come out one by one! That would be very, very nice."

"Timmy's coming now," said George. "I've wrapped him up well in that rug and tied it all round him, and put a kind of rope-harness on him. Dick's going to lower him down. We doubled the rope to make sure it would hold. Look — here he comes! Poor darling Timmy! He can't think what in the world is happening!"

Timmy came down slowly, swinging a little, and bumping into the stone wall now and again. He gave a little yelp each time, and George was sure he would be covered with bruises! She watched in great suspense as he came lower and lower.

"Timmy ought to be used to this sort of thing by now," said Julian. "He's had plenty of it in the adventures he's shared with us. Hey there, Tim! Slowly does it! Good dog, then! I guess you're glad to be standing on firm ground again!"

Timmy certainly was. He allowed himself to be untied from his rug by George, and then tried a few steps to see if the ground was really firm beneath his feet. He leapt up at George joyfully, very glad to be out in the open air again.

"Here comes Dick," said Julian. The peg-rope swayed a little, and Alfredo went to hold it steady. He and the rubber-man and Mr. Slither were now extremely concerned about something, so concerned that they had hardly a word to say to Julian and George and Anne.

They had suddenly missed Jo and the snake! The snakeman didn't care tuppence about Jo — but he did care about his precious, beloved, magnificent python! He had already hunted all round the courtyard for it.

"If Jo's taken it back to camp with her, I'll pull her hair off!" muttered the snake-man, unhappily, and Julian looked at him in astonishment. What
was
he muttering about?

Terry-Kane came next, and last of all Bufflo, who seemed to slide down in a most remarkable way, not using the pegs at all. He leapt down beside them, grinning.

"There's a tremendous upset up aloft!" he said. "Yelling and shouting and scampering about. What do you suppose is the matter with those fellows? We'll be able to get them nicely, if we go to the hole in the wall.

They'll be out there soon, I reckon. Come on!"

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SOMETHING certainly had happened to upset Pottersham and his three friends. After the door of the tower-room had been slammed and bolted, the men had gone clattering down the stone steps. They had come to the door that led into the gallery, and had opened it and gone out on to the gallery itself.

But before they could find the spiral staircase a little way along, Pottersham had tripped over something —

something that hissed like an engine letting off steam, and had wound itself round his legs.

He yelled, and struck out at whatever it was. At first he had thought it was a man lying in wait for him, who had pounced at his legs — but he knew it wasn't a man now. No man could hiss like that!

One of the men shone a torch down to see what was the matter with Pottersham. What he saw made him yell and almost drop the torch.

"A snake! A snake bigger than any I've ever seen! It's got you, Pottersham!"

"Help me, man, help me! shouted Pottersham, hitting down at the snake as hard as he could. "It's squeezing my legs together in its coils."

The other men ran to help him. As soon as they began to tug, Beauty uncoiled and glided off into the shadows.

"Where's the horrible thing gone?" panted Pottersham. "It nearly crushed my legs to powder! Quick, let's go before it comes back. Where in the world did it come from?"

They took a few steps — but the snake was lying in wait for them! It tripped them all up by gliding in and out of their legs, and then began to coil itself round one of the men's waists.

Such a shouting and yelling and howling began then! If ever there were frightened men, those four were! No matter where they went, that snake seemed to be there, coiling and uncoiling, gliding, writhing, squeezing!

It was Jo who had set the python on to them, of course. Jo had stayed in the gallery while all the disturbance upstairs had been going on, Beauty draped round her neck. The girl tried in vain to make out what was happening.

And then she had heard a door slam, a bolt shot home, and men's feet pouring down the stone stairs! She guessed it must be the four whose voices she had heard earlier in the evening, the men who had gone through the passages.

"Beauty! Now it's
your
turn to do something," said Jo, and she pulled the snake off her shoulders. He poured himself down her and flowed on to the ground in one beautiful movement. He glided towards the men, who were now coming out of the gallery. After that, the python had the time of his life. The more the men howled the more excited the big snake became.

Jo was huddled in a corner, laughing till the tears ran down her cheeks. She knew the snake was quite harmless unless he gave one of the men too tight a squeeze. She couldn't see what was going on, but she could hear.

"Oh dear — there's another one down!" she thought, as she heard one of the men tripped up by Beauty. "And there goes another! I shall die of laughing. Good old Beauty! He's never allowed to behave like this in the usual way. He
must
be enjoying himself!"

At last the men could bear it no more. "Come up to that tower-room!" yelled Pottersham. I'm not going back through those dark passages with snakes after me. There must be dozens of them here. We'll be bitten soon!"

Jo laughed out loud. Dozens of them! Well, probably Beauty did seem like a dozen snakes to the bewildered men falling over one another in the dark. But Beauty would not bite — he was not poisonous.

Somehow the men got up into the tower-room, and left the snake behind. Beauty was tired of the game now, and went to Jo when the girl called to him. She draped him round her neck, and listened.

The door up in the tower-room had slammed. Jo slipped up the steps, felt for the door-bolt in the darkness and neatly and quietly pulled it across. Now, unless the men liked to risk going down the peg-rope, which she guessed Bufflo had put up against the wall to rescue the others, they were nicely trapped. And if they
did
go down the rope they would be sure to find a few people waiting for them at the bottom!

"Come on Beauty, let's go," said Jo, and went down the steps, wishing she had a torch. She remembered the little lantern that had been left in the hidden room, and felt more cheerful. She would be able to take that with her down all those dark passages. Good!

Beauty slithered in front of her. He knew the way all right! They came to the little room, and Jo thankfully picked up the lantern. She looked down at the big python and he stared up at her with gleaming, unwinking eyes. His long body coiled and uncoiled, shining brown and polished in the light.