“Listen!”
They did so. Far in the distance they could hear the echo of Colonel Mendix’s footsteps, and the moving of several stones, and then all became silent.
“Do you think he spoke the truth about the rats?” asked Gus with a shudder.
“I don’t know, Gus; there may be rats here. But he evidently wanted to frighten us all he could.”
“Ugh! it makes me shiver to think of them. I wish we had a light.”
“I have some matches. I will strike one and see what kind of a place this is.”
“Hold on till I tear some pages out of my note-book and make lighters out of them. We want to save our matches.”
“That’s so.”
Gus soon had the lighters made. Then Oliver struck a match, and they gazed about them.
The place into which the Spaniard had led them was a veritable pit, some thirty or forty feet in diameter. On all sides the walls rose to the height of twenty feet or more—steep walls, which caused Oliver to shake his head sadly as he gazed at them.