The friends had counted on both men entering the room together and crossing as usual to the table. This change of plan disconcerted them. Already the gaoler had set down his tray and was turning toward the door. Alan, helpless, stood impotently in the shadow, biting his blond mustache with helpless rage. In another second their cherished opportunity would vanish. And, as the gaoler’s next visit was to be to Number Two, discovery stared them in the eyes.
It was Jack who broke the momentary spell of apathy. He was standing at the far end of the cell, near the stream.
“Here!” he called sharply to the lantern-bearer, “bring your light. My electric apparatus is out of order, and I’ve mislaid my matches. I want to fix--”
The lantern-bearer, obediently, had advanced into the room. He was half-way across it while Lamont was still speaking. Then, from the corner of his eye, he spied Alan crouching in the angle behind the door, now fully exposed to the rays of the lantern.
The man whirled about in alarm just as Alan sprang. In consequence the Englishman’s mighty fist whizzed past his head, missing it by a full inch.
The gaoler, recovering from his amaze, whipped out one of the revolvers he wore in his belt. But Jack, leaping forward, knocked it from his hand before he could fire; and, with one hand clapped across the fellow’s bearded lips, wound his other arm about the stalwart body so as to prevent for the instant the drawing of the second pistol.
Alan’s first blow had missed clean; but his second did not. Following up his right-hand blow with all a trained boxer’s swift dexterity, he sent a straight left hander flush on the angle of the light-bearer’s jaw. The man dropped his lantern and collapsed into a senseless heap on the floor, while Alan, with no further delay, rushed toward the gaoler.
The fall of the lantern extinguished the light. The cell was again plunged in dense blackness, through which could be heard the panting and scuffing of the Prince and the gaoler.
Barely a second of time had elapsed since first Jack had seized the man, but that second had sufficed for the latter to summon his great brute strength and shake off his less gigantic opponent and to draw his pistol.