Affluent though he was in matches, it was no part of the young man's plan to burn his entire supply at one sitting, as it were. For half an hour he crouched in the darkness, pondering. Then, as an answer to certain persistent questions that came up in his mind, he lit a third match. He greatly desired to know where lay the outlet to that cellar, and in this third illumination he decided that he had found it. There must be some sort of a trap-door at the top, through which he had been dropped or lowered. Those wide seams in the whitewashed ceiling must mean the cracks due to a set-in door. Undoubtedly that door had been bolted. Also, even assuming that it was not fastened, the ceiling was fully eight feet above him. There was no ladder, there were no stairs. His third match burned out.
In the instant of its last flicker he saw something white lying on the straw beside him. He promptly lit another match, and with rising excitement picked up the sheet of paper and read the three-line communication scrawled in pencil upon it:
Out to-morrow. Flash-light, candles, cigarettes, and matches in box at your left. Blankets in corner. Be good.
The recipient of this interesting document read it twice. Then, having secured the box at his left—a discarded collar box, judging by its shape and labels—he drew forth the flash-light, the cigarettes, the matches, and the candles it contained. Lighting one of the candles, he stuck it securely on a projecting ledge of the wall. By its wan light, aided by the electric flash, he took a full though still dazed inventory of his surroundings. The ophidian Shaw had puzzled him again.
He had handled Shaw very roughly for a time. He could still feel—and he recalled the sensation with great pleasure—the thick, slippery neck of the creature, and the way it had squirmed when he got his fingers into it. Yet the serpent evidently bore no malice. Or—a searing thought struck Laurie—having things his own way, he could afford to be generous. In other words, he was now perfecting his plans, while he, Laurie, was out of the way.
The promise of release to-morrow could mean, of course, only one thing—that those plans, whatever they were, would be carried out by then. And yet—and yet— The boy put his head between his hands and groaned. What was happening to Doris? Surely nothing could happen that night! Or could it? And what would it be? Only a fool would doubt Shaw's power and venom after such an experience as Laurie had just had, and yet—Even now the skeptical interrogation-point reared itself in the young man's mind.
One fact alone was clear. He must get out of this. But how? Flash-light in hand, he made the short tour of the cellar, examining and tapping every inch of the wall, the masonry, and the floor-work. Could he pile up the furniture and so reach the door in the ceiling? He could not. The articles consisted of the small, battered trunk, a legless, broken-springed cot, and a clock whose internal organs had been removed. Piled one on the other, they would not have borne a child's weight. Laurie decided that he was directly under Shaw's room. Perhaps the creature was there now. Perhaps he would consent to a parley. But shouts and whistles, and a rain of small objects thrown up against the trap-door produced no response.
He began to experience the sensations of a trapped animal. So vivid were these, and so overpowering, as he measured his helplessness against the girl's possible need of him, that he used all his will power in overcoming them. Resolutely he reminded himself that he must keep cool and steady. He would leave nothing undone that could be done. He would shout at intervals. Perhaps sooner or later some night-watchman would hear him. He would reach that trap-door if the achievement were humanly possible. But first, last, and all the time he would keep cool.
When he had exhausted every resource his imagination suggested, he sat in the straw, smoking and brooding, his mind incessantly seeking some way out of his plight. At intervals he shouted, pounded, and whistled. He walked the floor, and reëxamined it and the cellar walls. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning. He was exhausted, and his body still ached rackingly.
Very slowly he resigned himself to the inevitable. Morning would soon come. He must sleep till then, to be in condition for the day. He found Shaw's blankets, threw himself on the straw, and fell into a slumber full of disturbing dreams. In the most vivid of these he was a little boy, at school; and on the desk before him a coiled boa-constrictor, with Shaw's wide and sharp-toothed grin, ordered him to copy on his slate an excellent photograph of Doris.