“I’m going to take you people back to Mope’s Bottom,” he said. “You will keep well in front of me and if anyone looks back he will be turned into something deader than a pillar of salt. Now march.”

“What about Jim?” asked one of the prisoners, indicating the motionless form of the man who had been shot.

Labar reflected. For all he knew time might be precious. If Tom or Larry or Billy returned, as they might at any moment, he could hope for nothing better than a fight to the death. He shook his head.

“I’ll see that he’s looked after later,” he said. “Come. Get a move on.”

He marshalled them into the dark tunnel, and with a stern order that they were not to pass beyond the rays of his torch carried them to the interior steel door. There they came to a halt.

Two of the men fiddled with the catch meeting with some apparent difficulty. “It won’t open,” one of them declared. “Only Larry and Tom know the secret.”