He stretched his hands out on either side and felt the rough and dripping wall; then he got uncertainly to his feet, and step by step, advanced along the wall, stumbling, and stopping from time to time all a-tremble with fear and weakness. He kept on and on for perhaps half an hour; the cavern seemed of mammoth proportions, and a new terror seized him. Perhaps his captors had not really intended to leave him there to die; perhaps they only wished to frighten him; but if he wandered away into the mine there would be no hope for him.
He turned, and started back again with feverish haste. Suppose they should look for him, and finding him gone, give him up for lost? A dry sobbing choked him, but still he hastened on. And yet, how was he to tell when he had reached the spot to which he had been lowered? Might he not go past it? How was he to know?
He stared upward into the black void above him, but it showed no vestige of light. He raised his voice in a shrill cry, but there was no response except the echo flung back at him by the vault above. And again that convulsive trembling seized him, and he sank limply down against the wall. But whatever manhood he had rallied to his support; that love of life which is the one controlling force of cowardly natures asserted itself and gave him some semblance of self-control. He clasped his head in his hands and tried to think. To find his way back—and then it suddenly occurred to him that he had in his pocket some matches. He fumbled for them eagerly. Perhaps, with their help—
He struck one against the under side of his coat-sleeve, which was comparatively dry. It flared unsteadily, and then burned clearly. For a moment, Nolan was blinded by the flame; then he stared about him, scarcely able to believe his eyes. For on every side the black walls shut him in. He was at the bottom of a pit, not more than thirty feet in diameter, and he had been walking round and round it, too agitated and stupefied by fear to notice that he was travelling in a circle.
The match sputtered and went out, and Nolan sat for a long time with the stump of it in his fingers. He was evidently at the bottom of a shaft sunk in search of another vein, or, perhaps, of a natural cavity in the rock. Of the height of the walls he could form no estimate, but they were so smooth and straight that ten feet were as impossible to him as a hundred. Decidedly there was no chance of escape unless his captors chose to assist him.
As he sat there musing, a light fell into the pit, and he looked up to see one of his captors gazing down at him by the light of a torch which he held above his head.
“I just came to say good-bye,” he called down.
“Good-bye?” echoed Nolan, hoarsely.
“Yes,—it will soon be dark, and we’re going to pull out for the west. Ohio’s too hot for us just now.”
“And—and you’re goin’ t’ leave me here?” cried Nolan.