He stood a moment, facing her; then his hands clenched and he turned away.
"Let's go down the hill!" he said. "I'll see you in safety first."
CHAPTER XI
WITHOUT CONDITIONS
In the midst of a darkness that could be felt Fletcher Hill stood, grimly motionless, waiting. He knew that strong-room, had likened it to a condemned cell every time he had entered it, and with bitter humour he told himself that he had put his own neck into the noose with a vengeance this time.
Not often—if ever—before had he made the fatal mistake of trusting one who was untrustworthy. He would not have dreamed of trusting Harley, for instance. But for some reason he had chosen to repose his confidence in Warden, and now it seemed that he was to pay the price of his rashness. It was that fact that galled him far more than the danger with which he was confronted. That he, Fletcher Hill—the Bloodhound—ever wary and keen of scent, should have failed to detect a ruse so transparent—this inflicted a wound that his pride found it hard to sustain. Through his lack of caution he had forfeited his own freedom, if not his life, and exposed Dot to a risk from the thought of which even his iron nerve shrank. He told himself repeatedly, with almost fierce emphasis, that Dot would be safe, that Warden could not be such a hound as to fail her; but deep within him there lurked a doubt which he would have given all he had to be able to silence. The fact remained that through his negligence she had been left unprotected in an hour of great danger.
Within the narrow walls of his prison there was no sound save the occasional drip of water that oozed through the damp rock. He might have been penned in a vault, and the darkness that pressed upon him seemed to crush the senses, making difficult coherent thought. There was nothing to be done but to wait, and that waiting was the worst ordeal that Fletcher Hill had ever been called upon to face.
A long time passed—how long he had no means of gauging. He stood like a sentinel, weapon in hand, staring into the awful darkness, struggling against its oppression, fighting to keep his brain alert and ready for any emergency. He thought he was prepared for anything, but that time of waiting tried his endurance to the utmost, and when at length a sound other than that irregular drip of water came through the deathly stillness he started with a violence that sent a smile of self-contempt to his lips.
It was a wholly unexpected sound—just the ordinary tones of a man's voice speaking to him through the darkness where he had believed that there was nothing but a blank wall.