"I shan't need many hours in which to settle that question, for it is in my mind to go there now, hoping I may be so fortunate as to get speech with your comrade." At this moment I was cutting up the leg of lamb, putting the slices into a frying-pan as if intending to warm them, and Master Lord eyed me curiously, most like thinking I was an awkward lad at such work. His steady gaze annoyed me because I feared each instant he might discover that the position of the casks had been changed, and in my nervousness I went toward the table in order to place there the frying-pan, intending to give over my attempt at playing the cook. While doing so, naturally my gaze was fixed upon the face of this man whom we knew to be an enemy while he professed to be a friend, and I saw an expression of surprise suddenly come over it as his eyes were fixed upon the screen to the tunnel. "Been playing house-wife by setting things to rights?" he asked in an odd tone, as he rose to his feet and started with an assumption of carelessness toward the casks. My heart leaped into my mouth fit to choke me. The moment had come when everything which we had done would be discovered, for he could not fail to see Seth if he stepped behind the screen, or of knowing what we had done when he looked at the contents of the casks. It was my place, because of what we had agreed, to have leaped upon him on the instant, trusting that the others would follow my example, and yet so stupefied was I, whether through fear, or astonishment because the secret could not have been kept longer, that there was no movement on my part until Hiram Griffin, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, bounded forward like a cat, alighting on the shoulders of our treacherous host and bearing him, as a matter of course, to the floor. Job Lord was possessed of greater strength than one might have fancied from his build, and although all three of us lads sprang on the instant to Hiram's aid, for I recovered from my stupefaction as quickly as I had fallen into it, he succeeded in turning Griffin completely over, gaining a hold upon his throat in such manner as threatened to put a speedy end to the struggling. Hiram was not one who would lose his head at such a time, and straightway the two floundered about, first one on top and then the other, to such an extent that we who were anxiously striving for an opportunity to take part in the fight failed of so doing. Meanwhile Hiram's eyes were protruding as had Seth's, until I believed he would be strangled to death before we could get a hold of the traitor. Finally, and after what seemed to me a full ten minutes, I contrived to seize Job Lord by the arm, and as I pulled at the limb Archie was able to get a hold on his throat, thus, as can well be imagined, bringing the fight to an end.