In a moment the boy had lighted another match. He looked at the skeleton. It now lay silent and motionless, but scarcely less terrible to the eye.
“A victim of those miserable old Moors,” thought Frank. “And this foretells my own fate! I am to die here, and my bones are to bleach and rot beside the bones of this unfortunate wretch, who was, perhaps, a Christian like myself.”
Then he was seized by a tempest of rage, an ungovernable fury against the men who had cast him into that dungeon of death. He longed for the power to slay them, to blot them from the face of the earth.
“God help me!” he madly cried. “I must not die here—I will not die here! I will live to get square with them!”
Hours passed, and every hour seemed a day.
Frank explored the place where he was confined, and found it a large underground vault or cellar. There was a passage leading from it to some slippery stairs of stone. At the head of the stairs was a stone door. Hercules could not have moved that door from its position.
Frank explored all parts of his prison, and what he discovered was of a most discouraging nature.
There seemed no possible way of escaping.
Most boys would have given up in despair, but Frank still clung to hope, vowing he would live to “get square” with his captors.
His matches were running low, and the thought of being left with no redemption from continued darkness was far from pleasant.