Dan turned a piteous face toward him.
“You—you ain’t goin’ to hang me?” he faltered.
The men burst into a roar of laughter.
“No,” one of them answered, “we’re goin’ to save you from gettin’ hanged, as you certainly would be if we let you go. Really, you ought to thank us.”
Partially reassured, Dan managed to take a few steps forward. After all, they had said they were not going to kill him!
Then he stopped, with a quick gasp of dismay. At his feet yawned a pit, whose depth he could not guess. The torch which one of his captors bore disclosed the black wall below him, dripping with moisture, plunging into absolute and terrifying darkness.
Then Nolan understood. This was the “spare room.”
His teeth were chattering and a sort of hoarse wailing came from his throat, as they slipped the rope under his arms. He was only half-conscious; too weak with terror to resist. He felt himself lifted and swung off over the abyss; his body scraped downward along the rough wall, hundreds of feet, as it seemed to him; the moisture soaked through his clothes and chilled him. At last his feet touched solid ground, but his legs doubled helplessly under him and he collapsed against the wall. He felt the rope drawn from about him; then a kind of stupor fell upon him and for a time he knew no more.
At last he opened his eyes again and looked about him. He thought, at first, that he was sleeping in his loft, and that it was still night. Then he felt the rock at his back, and suddenly remembered all that had happened to him. His throat was dry and parched; his muscles ached, and every particle of strength had left his body. It seemed to him that hours and even days had passed while he lay there unconscious. Really, it had been only a few moments.