16 things begin to happen
jack crawled hurriedly back into the bush again, not waiting to wrap himself up in the rug, andgetting terribly scratched. when he was inside he remembered that he had left some paper bags inthe courtyard below, with some apple cores in them.
‘dash!’ he thought. ‘if those are found they’ll know there’s someone here besides themselves.’
he waited in the bush for an hour or so, taking peeps at the eagles’ nest now and again. hedidn’t know whether to hope the others would come soon, so that he would no longer be alone, orwhether to hope that they would be late, to give the men a chance to go off again without seeingthem.
‘if they’ve chosen this for a safe hiding-place for somebody, they won’t be too pleased to knowthat we are here,’ thought jack uneasily. ‘i suppose we really oughtn’t to have come to the castleat all. i suppose it does belong to someone – those men perhaps!’
he heard the sound of voices and peeped between the prickly branches to see who it was. it wasthe two men again. the hidden man was evidently not going to risk coming out of his hiding-place.
jack peeped at them. they were great hulking men, one of them with a black beard. he didn’tlike their faces at all. as they came near he tried to hear what they said, but they were not talkingany language he knew. that somehow made things all the stranger.
suddenly they stopped, and with an exclamation the bearded man picked up jack’s paper bags.
he saw the apple cores inside, and showed the other man. the cores were still moist, and jackguessed that the men knew they had not been there very long! he squeezed himself hard into thehollow of the gorse bush, glad that it was so thick.
the men then separated and began to make a thorough search of the castle, the towers, the wallsand the courtyard. jack watched them through a chink in the bush. kiki was absolutely quiet.
then the men joined up and came across to the crag where the eagles nested. it was plain theywere going to climb up to explore that place too, in case anyone was hiding there.
jack crouched as still as a mouse when an owl is near. his heart began to beat painfully again.
the men came right up the crag, and gave a cry of amazement when they saw the eagles’ nest withthe young one in.
evidently they did not know the ways of eagles, for they went quite near to the nest and one ofthe men put out his hand.
there was a whirr of mighty wings and the female eagle seemed to drop like a stone from thesky on to the man’s head. he turned away, whilst the other man beat off the angry bird. theattacked man put his arms across the top of his head to protect himself, and looked up at the malebird, scared, for that too was dropping quickly downwards.
jack could see all this, and an idea came to him. he had a marvellous view of the first man theeagle had attacked – he was still looking up, showing the whole of his face, and his neck in anopen-collared shirt. jack pressed his camera release. click! the man’s photograph was taken,though unfortunately the other man was by then looking away, and his face was hidden.
both men heard the click of the camera, and looked puzzled. then, as the female eagle came atthem again, they hurriedly descended the crag and ran down into the courtyard. they were notgoing to explore up there any more. in any case they both decided that nobody could possibly hideup there with fierce birds like that around!
jack waited in the bush, watching the eagles, who had been much upset by the visit of the twomen. soon it was plain to jack that they meant to take the young bird away from the nest. it mustlearn to fly! it could no longer be left in safety if two-legged creatures came right up to the nest.
the boy forgot his fears in his interest at the efforts of the two eagles to make the young one fly.
they persuaded it to the edge of the nest, and then, with a push, dislodged it on to the ledge onwhich the nest was built. the young bird tried to get back again, but the female eagle flew roundand round it, yelping, trying to tell it in all the eagle words she knew that it must go with her. theyoung one listened, or seemed to listen, then turned its head away, bored.
then, for no reason that jack could see, it suddenly spread out its wings. they were enormous.
the boy had been taking snap after snap, and now he took a splendid picture of the young eagletrying out his wings.
the youngster flapped his wings so hard that he danced about on tiptoe – and then, mostsuperbly, he took off from the ledge, and rose into the air, with his parents screaming on eitherside of him. he could fly!
‘marvellous!’ said jack, and cautiously took the roll of film from his camera. ‘i wonder ifthey’ll come back. it doesn’t matter much if they don’t, because i’ve got the most wonderful set ofpictures now. better than any anyone else has ever got!’
as he slipped a new roll of film into his camera, he heard the voices of the other children. hewas very glad – but where were those men?
he crept out from the bush, hardly feeling the prickles, and climbed down to join them. theysaw by his face that he had news for them. lucy-ann ran to him.
‘has anything happened, jack? you look very serious! what do you think! we’ve come up withpiles of things, because mrs mannering says we can stay for two or three days! she’s got to go todinah’s aunt polly, who has been taken ill again, but she’ll be back soon.’
‘and she thought we might as well join you up here if we wanted to!’ said dinah. ‘but youdon’t look very thrilled about it, jack!’
‘well, listen,’ said jack. ‘there’s something odd here. really odd. i don’t know if you ought tocome. in fact, as i’ve really taken all the snaps i need to take of the eagles, i honestly think itwould be better if we all went home.’
‘go back to spring cottage!’ said philip, in surprise. ‘but why? quick, tell us everything, jack.’
‘all right. but first, where’s tassie?’ said jack, looking round for the little gypsy girl.
‘her mother wouldn’t let her come,’ said lucy-ann. ‘when tassie told her we were all going tostay up at the castle with you, her mother nearly had a fit. she’s like the villagers, you know –thinks there’s something bad and creepy up here. she absolutely refused to let tassie come. so wehad to leave her behind.’
‘she was in an awful temper with her mother,’ said philip; ‘worse than any dinah gets into. sheflew at her mother and banged her hard. and her mother took hold of her and shook her like a rat.
i think tassie’s got an awful mother. anyway, she can’t come. but go on – tell your story.’
‘i suppose – i suppose you didn’t by any chance meet anyone coming down the hill, did you?’
said jack suddenly, thinking that perhaps the two men had gone.
‘we saw what looked like three men in the distance,’ said philip. ‘why?’
‘what were they like? did one have a black beard?’ asked jack.
‘we couldn’t possibly see what they were like, they were too far away, going down anotherpath altogether,’ said philip. ‘they might have been shepherds or anything. that’s what wethought they were, anyway.’
‘ three men,’ said jack thoughtfully. ‘that looks as if the hidden man went too, then.’
‘what are you talking about?’ cried dinah impatiently.
jack began his story. the others listened in astonishment. when he described the hiddenunderground room, lucy-ann’s eyes nearly fell out of her head!
‘an underground room – with someone living there! oh, i know what tassie would say – she’dsay it was that wicked old man still there!’ cried lucy-ann. ‘she’d say he would like to catch usand imprison us, so that no one ever heard of us again!’
‘don’t be silly,’ said jack. ‘the thing is – something is going on here, and we ought to find outwhat. i wish old bill smugs was here. he’d know what to do.’
‘we don’t even know his address,’ said philip. ‘all we know is that he’s in a town twenty milesaway. and now mother is away too, so we can’t ask her advice either.’
‘well, whether she is away or not, i think we ought to go back to spring cottage,’ said jacksoberly. ‘we have dealt with dangerous men before, and it wasn’t pleasant. i don’t want to bemixed up in anything dangerous like that again. we’d better all go back.’
‘right,’ said philip. ‘i agree with you. but, seeing that you think all three men are out of theway, what about having a squint at that hidden room? we might find something there to tell uswho uses it and why.’
‘all right,’ said jack. ‘come on. kiki, come along too. where’s button, philip?’
‘i left him with tassie, to comfort her for not coming with us,’ said philip. ‘she was somiserable. anyway, she’ll be pleased to see us back again so soon.’
they all went into the vast hall, and the boys switched on their torches. sure that there was noone but themselves in the castle, they made no effort to be quiet, but talked and laughed in theirusual way. jack led them to the back of the hall, and looked at the floor.
there was no hole to be seen at all. it had gone completely. the children looked about for atrap-door in the floor, but there was none. philip began to wonder if jack had dreamt it all.
then his sharp eyes saw a spike made of iron set deeply in the wall at the back of the hall. itshone as if it had been much handled. philip took hold of it.
‘here’s something strange!’ he began, and pulled hard. the spike moved smoothly in some sortof groove, and suddenly there was a grating noise at lucy-ann’s feet. she leapt back with astartled cry.
the ground was opening at her feet! a big stone there was disappearing downwards in somemysterious fashion, and then swung itself smoothly to one side, exposing a short flight of stonesteps, leading down into the hidden room that jack had seen the night before. the children gasped.
‘it reminds me of ali baba and the forty thieves or aladdin and his cave!’ said dinah. ‘shallwe go down? do let’s! this is most exciting.’
there was an oil lamp left burning on the long narrow table below, and by the light of this thechildren saw the room. philip, lucy-ann and dinah went eagerly down the steps to examineeverything. they saw the tapestries on the walls, depicting old hunting scenes, they saw the oldsuits of armour standing round the room, and the big, heavy chairs that looked as if they weremade for giants, not men.
‘where’s jack?’ said philip.
‘gone to get kiki,’ said dinah. ‘oh, look, philip, here’s another spike in the wall, just like theone upstairs. what happens when you pull it?’
she pulled it – and with a grating noise the stone swung up and into place, imprisoning the threechildren down below!
