"Toasted Cheese!" muttered Master Ambrose in amazement.
"It must have two doors, though I never knew it," said Master Nathaniel. "A secret door opening on to that hidden flight of steps. There are evidently people who know more about my chapel than I do myself," and suddenly he remembered how the other day he had found its door ajar.
Mother Tibbs laughed gleefully at their surprise, and then, placing one finger on her lips, she beckoned them to follow her; and they tiptoed after her out into the moonlit Fields of Grammary, where she signed to them to hide themselves from view behind the big trunk of a sycamore.
The dew, like lunar daisies, lay thickly on the grassy graves. The marble statues of the departed seemed to flicker into smiles under the rays of the full moon; and, not far from the sycamore, two men were digging up a newly-made grave. One of them was a brawny fellow with the gold rings in his ears worn by sailors, the other was -Endymion Leer.
Master Nathaniel shot a look of triumph at Master Ambrose, and whispered, "A cask of flower-in-amber, Brosie!"
For some time the two men dug on in silence, and then they pulled out three large coffins and laid them on the grass.
"We'd better have a peep, Sebastian," said Endymion Leer, "to see that the goods have been delivered all right. We're dealing with tricky customers."
The young man, addressed as Sebastian, grinned, and taking a clasp knife from his belt, began to prise open one of the coffins.
As he inserted the blade into the lid, our two friends behind the sycamore could not help shuddering; nor was their horror lessened by the demeanor of Mother Tibbs, for she half closed her eyes, and drew the air in sharply through her nostrils, as if in expectation of some delicious perfume.
But when the lid was finally opened and the contents of the coffin exposed to view, they proved not to be cere cloths and hideousness, but - closely packed fairy fruit.
"Toasted Cheese!" muttered Master Ambrose; "Busty Bridget!" muttered Master Nathaniel.
"Yes, that's the goods all right," said Endymion Leer, "and we'll take the other two on trust. Shut it up again, and help to hoist it on to my shoulder, and do you follow with the other two - we'll take them right away to the tapestry-room. We're having a council there at midnight, and it's getting on for that now."
Choosing a moment when the backs of the two smugglers were turned, Mother Tibbs darted out from behind the sycamore, and shot back into the chapel, evidently afraid of not being found at her post. And she was shortly followed by Endymion Leer and his companion.
At first, the sensations of Master Nathaniel and Master Ambrose were too complicated to be expressed in words, and they merely stared at each other, with round eyes. Then a slow smile broke over Master Nathaniel's face, "No Moongrass cheese for you this time, Brosie," he said. "Who was right, you or me?"
"By the Milky Way, it was you, Nat!" cried Master Ambrose, for once, in a voice of real excitement. "The rascal! The unmigitated rogue! So it's him, is it, we parents have to thank for what has happened! But he'll hang for it, he'll hang for it - though we have to change the whole constitution of Dorimare! The blackguard!"
"Into the town probably as a hearse," Master Nathaniel was saying thoughtfully, "then buried here, then down through my chapel into the secret room in the Guildhall, whence, I suppose, they distribute it by degrees. It's quite clear now how the stuff gets into Lud. All that remains to clear up is how is gets past our Yeomen on the border but what's taken you, Ambrose?"
For Master Ambrose was simply shaking with laughter; and he did not laugh easily.
"Do the dead bleed?" he was repeating between his guffaws; "why, Nat, it's the best joke I've heard these twenty years!"
And when he had sufficiently recovered he told Master Nathaniel about the red juice oozing out of the coffin, which he had taken for blood, and how he had frightened Endymion Leer out of his wits by asking him about it.
"When, of course, it was a bogus funeral, and what I had seen was the juice of that damned fruit!" and again he was seized with paroxysms of laughter.
But Master Nathaniel merely gave an absent smile; there was something vaguely reminiscent in that idea of the dead bleeding - something he had recently read or heard; but, for the moment, he could not remember where.
In the meantime, Master Ambrose had recovered his gravity. "Come, come," he cried briskly, "we've not a moment to lose. We must be off at once to Mumchance, rouse him and a couple of his men, and be back in a twinkling to that tapestry-room, to take them red-handed.
"You're right, Ambrose! You're right!" cried Master Nathaniel. And off they went at a sharp jog trot, out at the gate, down the hill, and into the sleeping town.
They had no difficulty in rousing Mumchance and in firing him with their own enthusiasm. As they told him in a few hurried words what they had discovered, his respect for the Senate went up in leaps and bounds - though he could scarcely credit his ears when he learned of the part played in the evening's transactions by Endymion Leer.
"To think of that! To think of that!" he kept repeating, "and me who's always been so friendly with the Doctor, too!"
As a matter of fact, Endymion Leer had for some months been the recipient of Mumchance's complaints with regard to the slackness and inefficiency of the Senate; and, in his turn, had succeeded in infecting the good Captain's mind with sinister suspicions against Master Nathaniel. And there was a twinge of conscience for disloyalty to his master, the Mayor, behind the respectful heartiness of his tones as he cried, "Very good, your Worship. It's Green and Juniper what are on duty to-night. I'll go and fetch them from the guard-room, and we should be able to settle the rascals nicely."
As the clocks in Lud-in-the-Mist were striking midnight the five of them were stepping cautiously along the corridors of the Guildhall. They had no difficulty in finding the hollow panel, and having pressed the spring, they made their way along the secret passage.
"Ambrose!" whispered Master Nathaniel flurriedly, "what was it exactly that I said that turned out to be the pass-word? What with the excitement and all I've clean forgotten it."
Master Ambrose shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea," he whispered back. "To tell you the truth, I couldn't make out what she meant about your having used a pass-word. All I can remember your saying was `Toasted Cheese!' or `Busty Bridget!' - or something equally elegant."
Now they had got to the door, locked from the inside as before.
"Look here, Mumchance," said Master Nathaniel, ruefully, "we can't remember the pass-word, and they won't open without it."
Mumchance smiled indulgently, "Your Worship need not worry about the pass-word," he said. "I expect we'll be able to find another that will do as well eh, Green and Juniper? But perhaps first - just to be in order - your Worship would knock and command them to open."
Master Nathaniel felt absurdly disappointed. For one thing, it shocked his sense of dramatic economy that they should have to resort to violence when the same result could have been obtained by a minimum expenditure of energy. Besides, he had so looked forward to showing off his new little trick!
So it was with a rueful sigh that he gave a loud rat-a-tat-tat on the door, calling out, "Open in the name of the Law!"
These words, of course, produced no response, and Mumchance, with the help of the other four, proceeded to put into effect his own pass-word, which was to shove with all their might against the door, two of the hinges of which he had noticed looked rusty.
It began to creak, and then to crack, and finally they burst into an empty room. No strange fruit lay heaped on the floor; nothing hung on the walls but a few pieces of faded moth-eaten tapestry. It looked like a room that had not been entered for centuries.