"News! What news?" asked Denham, his brows drawing together.
"An hour ago," said the other, "the guards sent word through the city to sharpen all swords, to get all weapons ready. I tell thee, lad, it's soon we'll be dropping down on Kom, to loot it from end to end. Split me, they're going to loose us ere long," and with an anticipatory, gloating chuckle, the seaman passed on.
Denham turned to us, his face suddenly white. "You heard?" he asked. "That means that we have little time left for action. We dare not wait now until the moonless nights. We'll have to take our chance on the first night that it's cloudy above, for then it will be darker here. And if we fail in our attempt, it means these hordes of devils here flashing down to make a hell of an unwarned, unprotected city. For the Raider is getting ready to strike!"
CHAPTER 13
IN THE PIT
The hours, the days, that followed, I remember now as one remembers a particularly vivid dream, for even at the time, I seemed to see all in the city around me through the haze of assured impossibility that surrounds a dream. And, although I can well understand how the city in the pit was a very hell on earth to those long confined in it, yet to me during the next few days it was a city of wonder.
There was little to do but wander through it. Each day we waited tensely for night, but always when night came there came with it a flood of soft light that poured down revealingly from the roof, the moonlight of the earth above brought down to us by the glass globes above and in the roof. Had it been cloudy above, it would have been dark enough here in the pit to chance an attempt, but to do so in the brilliant light was out of the question. And we dared take no more chances than necessary, since if discovered, we should doubtless never live to make another attempt.
So in the eight days that followed, while Denham and his friends fretted impatiently at the delay, I spent the time roaming through the city, usually with one or all of the four friends as guide. When possible, we preferred to keep together, since thus we made up a strong little company whose five swords deterred many truculent souls from attacking us.
Even so, we were twice involved in combats, from both of which we managed to emerge victorious, though not unscathed. It was a bloody enough society, there in the city of the pit, a wilder life almost than that of roaming wolves, yet it had a fierce, free charm that stirred me, at times. A product of civilization, myself, I was thrown now into a life where strength and skill with weapons were the measure of a man, and where all disputes were settled with swords. Cooped as we were in the crowded pit, yet we were untrammeled by any form of law or etiquette, and I soon learned to swagger as boldly and scowl as ferociously as any fire-eater in the pit. And, too, in constant practise with my friends, I learned sword-play well.