Читать книгу Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in France and Belgium. Or, Saving the Fortunes of the Trouvilles онлайн

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The front door of the house was thrown open, and a shaft of light pierced the darkness. The boys backed up against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe. The soldier looked up at the clouds, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, muttered something to himself, turned back and slammed the door with a bang. At this the boys gave a backward heave, and were through the door and into the garden.

This interior was blacker than the mouth of an inkwell. Billy cautiously forced the door back in place.

“Got any matches?” Billy had failed to find any in his own pockets.

Henri was better supplied. In the military aëroplane he had not only found matches, but also a box of tapers, and he had taken the precaution of putting them in his pockets when they left the machine.

With a little flame, carefully shaded, the boys discovered a shaky-looking ladder in a grape-arbor at the back of the garden.

By degrees, foot by foot, they edged the ladder alongside of the house, and gently hoisted it to the window of the upper room, which Leon had assured them was the right one.