"I saw you fire at the policemen," said Knocker. "You did it well."
"Listen," said Bingo, in a whisper, "here they come."
Sure enough there were footsteps upstairs and Erbie came creeping sideways into the cellar like a white crab. He slithered over to the cage and had a prod or two with a pointed stick. The Borribles got as far away from the idiot as they could.
"Better get an aspirin, sonny," murmured Bingo, "because you're going to have an awful headache. You think you're dopey now, but wait till you've had a little bash round the bonce."
There was a slamming of doors above and some heavy thumps as the Borribles came in and dropped their sacks of loot onto the floor. Then they were pushed downstairs by Dewdrop, who could be heard grumbling because it had been a poor night's stealing.
The door to the cellar stood open and the Borribles stumbled in.
"Go'ron, you lazy little fools," shouted Dewdrop. "Nothing, nothing you brought me. How can I make a living like this? Monsters, ungrateful monsters, I'll be working until I'm a failing old man at this rate, never able to retire."
He rushed through the doorway and stopped to look round the cellar. His face was angry red, purple in the tight skin near his mouth. "None of you shall eat tonight, none of you," he snarled.
Adolf and Knocker had their backs to the door, crouching in the cage, catapults firmly gripped, spare marbles in the ready hand of a colleague. They glanced at each other and on the nod they turned unhurriedly, stretching the catapults as far as they would go, a murderous extent, and let fly, each at his target.
Knocker's marble hit Erbie on the left temple, hard. Erbie swayed, his smile petrified, stiff as blancmange, but he did not fall; unconscious, he was kept upright by some trick of gravity.
Adolf did not have the same luck. As he released the elastic Dewdrop moved forward, intending to thrash the Borribles, for he was in a foul temper, and the marble only clipped him on the back of the head, serving but to increase his anger and his vigilance.
He looked towards the cage and reached for the truncheon that always stood just inside the cellar door; the moisture at the end of his nose glowed blue, green and mauve.
"Throwing stones, ain't it?" he roared, then he saw the catapults and was scared.
"Erbie, we'll have to lock the doors on these guttersnipes until they comes to their senses."
But it was too late. Napoleon kicked the truncheon out of Dewdrop's reach. Adolf reloaded and he didn't miss a second time. The projectile crashed and splintered into the middle of the rag-and-bone man's forehead and he staggered back against the wall, sorely hurt, and his dewdrop, that globe of multi-colored mucus, finally broke off its infatuation with the nose and fell to the floor.
"Oh, Erbie," Dewdrop cried piteously. "Oh, Erbie, help me, my boy, my son, my joy."
But poor Erbie was in no state to help anyone. Chalotte had thrust a second marble into Knocker's hand as soon as he had fired the first. He reloaded and shot at Dewdrop's crazed son, still rocking on his heels. The heavy glass bullet struck Erbie a fatal blow above the heart and he fell backwards, demolished, like an old factory chimney.
Dewdrop could not believe what he saw. He raised a bewildered hand to his bleeding forehead, the blood trickled down into his eyes and confused him. Napoleon picked up the truncheon and stood ready, but he waited for Adolf to fire his last shot.
The German, veteran of many a battle, and survivor from a multitude of tight corners, took his time.
"Oh, my son, my poor little Erbie, what have they done to you, you little darling what wouldn't hurt a fly? Oh, what a cruel world, my boy. Erbie, speak up and chat to your father."
Adolf's third marble flew straight as an arrow, and as fatally, to the temple of the Borrible-Snatcher. He lurched and pressed both hands to his head, then, lifeless himself, he fell forward with a mighty crash across the lifeless body of his son.
"So perish all Borrible-Snatchers," said Knocker grandly, and the others looked at each other with a wild delight. They were free.
It was the work of only a few minutes to find the keys and open the door of the cage. They discovered their haversacks in the next cellar room, where they had come into the house of Dewdrop Bunyan and Son so many weeks before; their catapults and bandoliers were there too.
Soon the Adventurers were re-equipped and in marching order. They found food upstairs in the well-stocked kitchen and they ate as they had not eaten for many a day. Then, smiling and almost crying with happiness, they went out into the yard.
Knocker went to the cart and threw his haversack into it; Napoleon, keeping close behind him, did the same.
The others hesitated for a moment and lowered their haversacks to the ground.
"Where," asked Sydney, "are you going with that cart?"
"What do you mean?" said Knocker, his eyes widening, taken aback. "Rumbledom, of course."
"We think," said Chalotte, "that escaping from a Borrible-Snatcher is an Adventure in itself, let alone killing one. We've earned our names already."
"But that is not what we came for." Knocker looked at the ring of faces that surrounded him, searching for some support. The support came immediately, from an unexpected source.
"No," said Napoleon Boot stepping forward, "that is not what we came for. I'm with Knocker."
"I think I have earned my English name," said Adolf. "I understand Chalotte, she is right, we have done enough, but I go with Knocker. That is because I am slightly mad. I have a thing about Adventures."
"We all want to go really," said Bingo, sitting on his haversack, "but . . . I mean . . . we've been so knocked about by Erbie, and we haven't eaten properly for ages."
"We aren't fit for the job, now, are we?" said Torreycanyon. "Perhaps we should rest up for a bit, eh?"
"What are you on about?" snapped Napoleon. "We can't go back now, what would we look like?"
Seven Borribles looked selfconscious and shifted their feet.
"However rotten we feel," insisted Knocker, "we've got to go on. We're free now, that's a tonic in itself. Anyway, you lot can do what you like. The three of us are going. Get the horse, Nap."
Bingo stood up and the others moved a step.
Chalotte said, "If Knocker and Nap can agree for once then something very dodgy is happening, so we'll have to go along, I suppose, to see what they're up to," and she gave Knocker and Napoleon a long and piercing look.
Bingo shrugged his shoulders, threw his haversack into the cart and quoted a proverb at no one in particular, "If you're my friend, follow me round the bend."
The others did as he did and exchanged grim smiles with Knocker. The horse was brought from the stable and Sydney went over and spoke to him affectionately.
"So we're all going to Rumbledom, Sam, after all, and you will come with us. Rumbles don't like horses, but we do, you will be our mascot and mate and we will protect you." And all of them stroked him and gave him lumps of sugar they had taken from the house and they put him between the shafts and made ready. They took a long raincoat from the house too, a good one that Dewdrop had always worn on rainy nights, and Bingo who was the lightest, sat on Stonks's shoulders, for he was the strongest, and Stonks sat on the driving seat of the cart and they put the raincoat round Bingo's shoulders and it looked for all the world as if an adult was driving. The rest of the Adventurers hid under the tarpaulin at the back and with a crack of the whip and with a "Giddeyup, old Sam, me deario, ain't it?" Bingo drove them out of the yard and they began the last lap of their journey to the borders of Rumbledom, South-West Nineteen.
"There's one thing," said Knocker, as they all sat warm and content under the canvas, "we were in Engadine so long that the Rumbles have probably given us up for dead—and if they don't like horses, so much the better. Sam can take us right up to their front door and kick it down."
7
It was dark.
It was the darkest part of the night but Sam knew the way to Rumbledom and he pulled the cartload of Borribles joyfully, knowing in his heart that he would be beaten and cursed no more. He took them away from the hateful memories of Engadine, and Bingo, secure on the shoulders of Stonks, sang a rousing Borrible song to himself, a song that told of the dangers past and the dangers to come.