"Von Hildemaller!" said Geoff under his breath, speaking to himself in fact. "Now, how----?" Philip moved and nudged his comrade. "That beast," Geoff heard him whisper; "he's got out somehow! But how? I----" "S--sh! It's not. It's a Turk, awfully like him," Geoff whispered back, putting his lips close to Philip's ear. "Not a word more or he may hear us." True enough, the figure dallying in the centre of the hall was indeed almost a facsimile of that of the ponderous von Hildemaller. Of moderate height and thickset, his feet encased in Turkish slippers, the man's general appearance was alarmingly like that of the German, while, dimly to be seen through the dusk now settling deeper about the hall, were the ends of a pair of moustaches quite as fierce and flowing as those proudly flaunted by the German. Only the head was different, for it was bald, and perched on the back of it was a fez. Evidently, too, if this new-comer had had his suspicions roused, if he had actually heard sounds as he descended the stairs, he had now brushed the matter aside and was prepared to treat it as a delusion, as something easily explainable; for he moved on again, crossing the stone-flagged hall with heavy steps, and passing out into the dusk beyond, in the direction from which Geoff and Philip were escaping. It was then that Geoff mopped his forehead with what was left of a somewhat dilapidated and dirty handkerchief, while Philip allowed a breath of astonishment to escape his lips in a subdued whistle. "Jingo!" he exclaimed; "that's a near one!" "The Governor!" Geoff said. "The Governor, I'm sure. Ponderous and filled with dignity, a regular second von Hildemaller. But come along, we've no time to wait. Let's move on up the stairs and see what sort of a place the fellow came from." Still in their stockinged feet, with their boots tucked in between their belts and their bodies, the two crossed the hall and ran lightly up a stone staircase. Turning abruptly as the stairs twisted upward, they presently reached a doorway where their further progress was barred by a door, framed in iron like that which had shut the opening from their cell, every feature of which they had studied so completely. "Bah!" exclaimed Philip in disgust. "Trapped inside the place." "Don't let's shout till we're hurt," said Geoff resolutely. "Perhaps it isn't locked; we'll try it; here's the latch. Hallo! It opens!" "And we go through, as a matter of course. Wonder what the Governor'd say if he knew that his two prisoners were about to investigate his quarters?"