IV
Every drop of blood seemed to leave Roberts’s face, and his head fairly swam.
“Twenty years!” he gasped to himself. “In heaven’s name, what can it mean?”
Those words seemed to him to cap the climax of the night’s experiences, and he stood as he was for fully a minute without speaking or asking another question of the inmate of the other room. When suddenly the silence was broken, it was by the other.
“Are you sure no one has heard you?” panted the man.
Roberts sprang to his feet and crept swiftly toward his own room. He peered out around the front of the bed, but a single glance was enough to show him that the door was still shut, and that there was no longer any sign of trouble. Then once more he came back and stooped before the keyhole.
“Tell me,” he gasped breathlessly, “tell me your story. How did it happen? Where were you?”
“I lived in Caracas, in Venezuela,” the other responded. “I was in business there for years. One day I was surprised in my own house by three men, who overpowered me and drove me away in a carriage. They drugged me in some way or other, for the next time I knew anything I was a prisoner in this room.”
“And you have stayed there ever since?” panted Roberts, almost beside himself with horror.
“For twenty years!” the man responded.
“And you have made no attempt to get out?”
“What good would it do?” cried the other. “They have iron bars for all the windows and they keep my door locked.”
“How do they pass you food?” inquired Roberts. “They must open the door.”
“Why, yes,” the man answered, “they open the door, but what good does that do? There are always a half-dozen men standing in the doorway, and they would overpower me if I made any resistance.”
As Henry Roberts listened to that narrative he could scarcely believe the evidences of his own senses. He had long ago given up any attempt to think what could be the explanation of this extraordinary state of affairs. He made one more attempt upon the door, but that apparently caused the utmost terror to the other man.
“You can’t do it,” he said. “It is locked, and that Frenchman has the key.”
“What Frenchman?” asked Roberts.
“The man who is in charge of this place,” said the other. “The one whose prisoner I am.”
“Is he a short, stout man, with gray hair?”
“Yes,” was the reply, “that is he.”
Roberts shuddered involuntarily.
“Oh, don’t speak of him!” continued the other breathlessly. “He is a fiend! A perfect fiend!”
“What did he do?” panted Roberts.
“I cannot tell you all,” was the reply. “It would be too horrible. He is the master of this place and it is he who keeps me prisoner. On no account resist him or cry out for help—it is utterly useless.”
Roberts felt a grim smile cross his face as he heard those words; he clutched his revolver tightly.
“I will risk it,” he thought. “They will have to open that door to give me some food!”
“They never fail to watch this door,” the voice whispered in response to an inquiry from Roberts. “They will hear me and come in here, and then—then——”
There was an instant or two of silence, during which Roberts waited for the man to continue. But he did not do so. For suddenly the deep silence which reigned through the place was broken by a different sound, one that made the American’s hair fairly rise. It was as if the teeth of the other man were chattering audibly.
“They are coming!” he whispered in a low gasp, as if he were trying to speak but dared not. And then a second later Roberts’s ears were smitten by a loud, piercing scream. He heard the man bound to his feet.
“No! no!” he shrieked. “Stop! You shall not! It was not my fault!”
At the same instant came the sound of several muffled footsteps about the room, and, in another voice, several words which Roberts could not understand.
The agonized screams of the other person grew louder and louder, accompanied by sounds which told plainly of a struggle. They lasted for only a few seconds, however, and then came a crash and all was silent.
During that incident Henry Roberts had remained crouching at the door, too horrified to move, but, as the sounds died away, for the first time he thought of his own peril and was on his feet with a single spring. He turned and dashed across the floor of the cell. But even as he did so he realized that the few seconds’ hesitation had cost him everything.
The curtain of his bedroom was suddenly pushed aside, and a hand reached in to grasp the door. Like a flash Roberts swung up his revolver and leveled it, but before he could pull the trigger the iron barrier shut to with a clang that seemed to shake every portion of the man’s body.
He was a prisoner in the cell!
The American leaned back against the wall, where he stood panting for breath and clutching his weapon, staring about him wildly and striving to pierce the darkness. The effort was vain, however, and the absolute silence that prevailed afforded him not the slightest clue as to what was going on.
He realized with a sinking heart what an advantage he had lost by failing to take possession of the large room where he had a light. But even as he was, with his revolver in his hand, he concluded, after a few swift thoughts, that his case was not entirely hopeless.
“They will have to open the door some time,” he gasped, “and they may not know that I have got a revolver.”
There was, however, the fearful possibility that his mysterious captor might see fit to starve him out. The American realized that he would be absolutely helpless before that.
“But there is a window,” he thought; “perhaps I can shout and attract attention.”
Prompted by that thought, he felt his way along the wall until he reached the opening in question. He raised himself up and peered between the bars; but it was only to make one more discovery. The window was closed by an iron shutter or drop, which resisted all his efforts to move it.
“And I am in here without a breath of air!” he thought.
The whispered words had scarcely passed his lips before the last climax of his mysterious experiences arrived. Suddenly a strange smell attracted his attention, and as he discovered the cause he gave a gasp of despair.
The room was slowly filling with a gas!
Roberts even then fancied that he could hear the sound of it entering through some pipe which he could not find. Every second that certainty was made more and more plain to him, and he darted forward perfectly beside himself with desperation. He flung himself savagely against the iron door, but it seemed to laugh at his efforts. He seized the knob and tugged savagely, but with no effect. He stooped down at the keyhole, hoping in that way to escape the new and horrible fate, but he found that it also had been closed, and as he rushed across the room to the other door exactly the same experience was repeated.
In the meantime he had, of course, been breathing the poisoned air of the tiny cell. The deadly fumes were becoming stronger and stronger, causing him to gasp and his head to reel. Twice more he threw all his weight against the door in vain, and then, clutching the knob to sustain himself, he stood for a second or two, swaying this way and that, gasping and striving to hold his breath to keep out the choking vapor.
Then everything reeled before him, and he found himself clutching wildly in every direction. The revolver dropped from his helpless grasp, and a second later he pitched forward upon the floor of his cell. At the very same instant one of the doors was flung open and a flood of light poured into the place. It was the last thing he perceived as consciousness left him.