That frightful sound continued near at hand, turning the boy’s blood icy cold. Had he been thrown into a dungeon where lay some other victim of the blood-thirsty Moors—some other unfortunate Christian, it might be? He held his breath to listen, and the sound stopped.
“He is dead!” thought the horrified lad.
But, a moment later, the rasping breathing began again, and then Frank made a singular discovery.
The sounds came from his own throat, which had been fearfully crushed by the iron fingers which had fastened on it.
He lifted his hand to his neck, and found it terribly sore to his touch.
“It is a wonder that I am yet alive,” he told himself.
And then came the thought that it might be much better for him if he were dead and out of his misery.
Beyond a doubt he was a prisoner, confined in some horrible place, doomed to perish there alone.
Alone! That was a terrifying thought. It seemed even more horrible than his fancy of a few seconds before that a dying man was near.
A sudden desire to cry out, to shout, to scream, came upon him. He opened his lips to do so, but no more than a hoarse gasp, that was half a groan, came from them.