“I didn’t come willingly, I was brought. And now suppose you let me go,” I answered.
“Let you go? Ha! See there.” And he pointed to something behind me.
I turned. A wide dark space hitherto unnoticed caught my gaze. A black patch it looked like. No, it was a hole, a jagged irregular hole or crevice.
“That hole deep—damn deep,” he went on. “Let you go? yes—down there. No find again. We cut your throat first, see—I do that—then throw you in. No find again. Ha!”
I believe I went pale, and I know my flesh crept all over at the prospect of this horrible fate. But I remembered Septimus Matterson’s dictum—more than once laid down—with regard to these people: “You must never let them imagine you’re afraid of them.” So I laughed as I answered—
“You daren’t do it. The police would hunt you down, and then the Government would hang every man jack of you.”
“Hang? Ha! Not it. We don’t care for no damn Government. To-morrow morning you go down hole.”
“Why wait till to-morrow?”
The ruffian chuckled.
“See better then. Leave no spoor. Light not good now—might forget something. Body found, perhaps we hang. No body found, then perhaps you not dead. Damn deep that hole. Ha!”