Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen

The two young men had expected everything, but they didn't expect someone to ask such a question.They would not have been so surprised if they had heard a shot. Regarding this sleeping city, Marcel had made all kinds of assumptions, but he never thought that a big living person would come out and ask him who he was.If it is assumed that Stahlstad is deserted, it is reasonable and legal for them to break in, but if there are still people in the city, the problem is quite different.In the former case, their arrival was nothing more than an archaeological investigation, while in the latter case, it became an armed break-in.

All these thoughts rushed into Marcel's mind at once, and he was suddenly as dumb as to be unable to speak. "Who is it?" the voice asked again impatiently. This impatience is obviously not entirely unreasonable.Climbing over the wall and over obstacles, bombing and smashing, is just to enter this door, but when people ask "Who is it?", they don't know how to answer, which is of course surprising. It took only half a minute for Marcel to realize the embarrassment of his situation.So, he immediately replied in German: "Friend or foe is up to you! Anyway, I want to see Mr. Schulz."

Before he finished speaking, he heard an exclamation from the crack of the door: "what!" Marcel could vaguely see a red beard, a tuft of lips, and a dull eye through the crack of the door.He recognized at once who it was: it was Sijime, who had guarded him before. "John Schwartz!" exclaimed the giant in mixed surprise and delight, "John Schwartz!" The sudden return of his prisoner astonished Sidhime as much as the previous mysterious disappearance. "Can I see Mr. Schultz?" Marcel asked again when he saw that the other party was only surprised and didn't answer.

Sijime shook his head. "No orders!" he said. "No one is allowed to come in here without orders!" "Would you please report to Mr. Schultz that I am here and that I would like to speak to him?" "Mr. Schultz is not here! Mr. Schultz is gone!" Sijimei replied a little sadly. "Where did he go? When is he coming back?" "I don't know! The guard system has not changed! No one is allowed to enter without an order!" There were only a few incoherent words that Marcel could get out of Sijime.For all his questions, Sijimei pushed back like a stubborn bull.At last Octave grew impatient.

"Why do you have to ask his permission to go in?" said Octave. "Just rush in!" After he finished speaking, he knocked on the door, trying to break in.But the iron chain was firmly fastened, and the man inside was stronger, and with a sudden push, the door was closed, and then the door was plugged in with the bolt. "There must be several people behind the door!" cried Octave, humiliated at the rejection. He pressed his eyes to the hole drilled in the door, and as soon as he saw it, he cried out: "There's another giant!" "Arminius?" Marcel asked himself.

So, he also stuck to the door hole and looked in. "Yes! It's Arminius, a colleague of Sijime's!" Suddenly, a voice that seemed to descend from the sky caused Marcel to raise his head. "Who is it?" the voice asked. This time, it was Arminius' voice. The guard's head stuck out of the wall, and he must have climbed a ladder to reach it. "Come, you know it's me, Arminius!" replied Marcel, "will you open the door?" Before he finished speaking, he saw a gun barrel protruding from the wall.Then there was a shot, and a bullet grazed Octave's hat brim.

"Well, let me answer you!" Marcel yelled, slipping a detonator under the door and blowing it up. As soon as the door blew open, Marcel and Octave rushed into the garden, muskets in hand and knives in their mouths. On the wall they had just passed through which had been blasted, there was still a ladder leaning against it, and there were some bloodstains in front of the ladder.Neither Sidhime nor Arminius were there to guard the passage, however. Hundreds of flowers bloomed in the garden, and a beautiful scenery was presented in front of the two besiegers.Octave was delighted and admired.

"It's beautiful! . . . " he said, "but watch out! . . . We must spread out! . . . These two bastards are probably hiding behind a bush!" Octave and Marcel walked separately, on either side of the passage among the flowers before them, jumping cautiously from tree to tree, from obstacle to obstacle. , It is advancing completely in accordance with the basic essentials of individual combat. You are right to be so careful.They hadn't gone a hundred paces when a second shot was heard.A bullet knocked off the bark of the tree Marcel had just left. "Don't be rash! . . . Lie down!" whispered Octave.

Having said this, he set an example by falling down on the ground, and crawling on his knees and elbows, he crawled till he reached the thorn bushes that surrounded the circular road.The Bull Tower stands in the middle of this circular road.Marcel moved a little slower and almost got hit by the third bullet, but he had just had time to hide behind a palm tree in case the fourth bullet came at him. "It's a good thing these two brutes look like novice shooters!" said Octave, at a distance of thirty paces, calling to his companion. "Shh!" Marcel answered with eyes and mouth, "do you see the smoke coming out of that window on the first floor? ... Those two bastards are hiding there! ... Let me get it They are happy!"

In an instant, Marcel cut off a length of moderate length from the pole of the grape arbor behind the bushes, then, taking off his coat, propped it up on the wooden pole, and put his hat on it, Made a decent dummy.He poked the dummy where he had been, and exposed the cap and the sleeves, then slipped out to Octave's side, and whispered in his ear: "You're going to get them from here, from you, and then from me, shooting at that window alternately! I'll take their back!" So Marcel left Octave to shoot alone, while he quietly crept into the bushes surrounding the Bull Tower.

A quarter of an hour passed, and the two sides fired about twenty rounds at each other, but none of them hit. Marcel's coat and hat were riddled with holes, but his fur was intact.As for the venetian fan on the first floor opposite, it had already been smashed to pieces by Octave. Suddenly the firing ceased, and Octave distinctly heard a muffled cry: "Come on! . . . I've got him! . . . " Octave rushed out, threw himself at the roundabout without cover, and jumped on the window within half a minute.He jumped out of the window and landed in the house. Marcel and Sijimet were entwined on the carpet like two snakes, fighting inextricably.The giant did not expect that the opponent would open the door suddenly and rushed up, so that he could not raise his gun in time to shoot.But he was a formidable opponent of great strength, and although he was crushed, he did not lose hope of turning the tables.And Marcel pulled out all the stops, both brave and dexterous. If Octave had not arrived in time, one of the two men would have to die before the struggle was over.Sijime was grabbed by the arms, disarmed, and tied tightly so that he could not move. "Another one?" asked Octave. Marcel pointed to a sofa at the top of the room on which Arminius lay covered in blood. "Has he been shot?" asked Octave. "Yes," Marcel replied. Then he approached Arminius. "Dead!" he said. "There is no doubt that he deserved it!" cried Octave. "We have become the masters of this place!" said Marcel. "Let's take a good look at this place. We will start with Mr. Schultz's office!" The two came out of the waiting hall where the final battle had just been held, walked through the rooms, and came to the "sacred place" of the Iron King. Octave marveled at the resplendent office. Marcel looked at Octave with a smile, opened the doors that stood in front of him, and went straight to the living room decorated with gold on a green background. He had expected to find something new here, but what he saw was so strange that he hadn't expected it.It was as if the General Post Office in New York or Paris had been robbed suddenly, and everything had been thrown indiscriminately in this living room.On the desk, on the furniture, and on the carpet, there are unopened letters and postal packages thrown everywhere, so that they can be buried in half of a person's leg.All Mr. Schulz's financial, industrial, and personal correspondence, delivered daily to the letter-box outside the garden, and delivered daily to the master's office by the faithful Arminius and Sigimet, were all piled up here. How many questions, anguish, anxious waiting, bankruptcy and tears are hidden in this mass of wordless letters to Mr. Schultz!At the same time, no doubt, how many millions of securities, cheques, bills of exchange, and promissory notes of every kind were concealed! . . . It all lay there motionless, and although the envelopes were so thin, no one dared to touch them because the only hand that had the right to open them was not there. "Now, we have to find the secret door leading to the laboratory!" said Marcel. So he began to remove all the books from the shelves.But he was too busy to discover the secret passage he had passed through with Mr. Schultz the other day.He pushed all the panels one by one, but still could not find anything, then he took an iron rod from the fireplace, and took off all the panels, but it was no use!He knocked on the wall again, hoping to hear the voice of the empty, but still hope in vain!He soon understood that Mr. Schultz was very worried because the door of the secret passage of the laboratory had been known by outsiders, so he simply blocked it. But Schultz must have had to make another entrance. "Where?..." Marcel wondered, "it can only be here, because Arminius and Sigimet sent all the letters here! Therefore, after I escaped, Mr. Schulz I still live in this house! I know his habits well, so I know that when he blocked the original secret passage door, he must have opened another unknown entrance nearby!  … Under the carpet, there will be no Will there be a secret door?" There was no sign of any splits in the carpet.But he still knocked out the nails and rolled up the carpet.He inspected each floor individually and found nothing suspicious. "Who told you that the entrance is in this room?" asked Octave. "That's what's in my head!" Marcel replied. "Then I'll just have to check the ceiling again," said Octave, mounting a chair. He was going to grab the chandelier and knock with the butt of his pistol on the large central flower plate. But as soon as Octave grasped the gilded chandelier with both hands, the chandelier in his hands dropped, to his horror.The ceiling also hangs down, revealing a large hole, and a lightweight steel ladder automatically falls from the hole to the ground. The ladder seems to invite you to go up. "Well, we have succeeded!" Marcel said calmly, and immediately climbed up the ladder, followed by his companion, who also climbed up the ladder.