But the sensation became rapidly unpleasant and intolerable, and I awoke suddenly, sweating and in terror. What had happened to me?
Then I heard Strong's voice, very subdued and soft, but certainly Strong's voice. Could this be still a part of the dream?
No, it was reality; Strong's voice was a reality; so was a handkerchief which he had tied over my mouth, gag-wise; so was a candle which he had lighted in the room, and the light of which revealed the detested face and ferocious expression of the scoundrel as he bent over me, and hissed his oaths and threats into my ear.
"Ah, you're awake, are you?" he murmured (I omit the oaths with which he befouled his language)—"I have you at last, you see, you infernal"—(I really cannot repeat the names he called me, they were too vile even to mention), "say your prayers, for you're off this time, to glory!"
I could not speak for the gag upon my mouth. I tried to raise my hands, but I found the rascal had tied them together at the wrists. I could hardly breathe, for the bandage was so tightly drawn that I was half suffocated already.
Strong saw that this was so. He put his hand behind my head and slightly loosened the handkerchief.
"Now, you whelp of Satan," he said, "get out of bed and show me where you've hidden the treasure, curse you! I've wasted time enough over it already. Don't pretend this hundred pounds odd, in your letter-case, is the lot. Lies won't do, you're off to Kingdom Come in two minutes; you'd better not go with a lie on your lips! Come,—I saw you find it,—you'd better be quick!"
I glared at the scoundrel, but did not move. I was thinking hard! Oh that I could get my hands free and be at him! or my mouth, that I might shout for Jack—who was in the adjoining bedroom. My heart was almost bursting with rage and hatred for this man; yet I was absolutely helpless; I could do nothing.
"What, you won't budge, won't you?" said the scoundrel. His face, at this crisis, looked exactly what I should imagine the devil to be like: the very incarnation of hatred and malice and all evil—but I daresay my own was not, at the moment, a type of innocent beauty and passionless charm, any more than his!
Strong placed his hand behind my neck a second time, and tightened the gag. I was suffocating—I kicked and struggled—my heart was bursting, my brain reeled and swam, my veins swelled—I sweated from head to foot in my agony and terror, and then—at the critical moment—by God's mercy an idea occurred to me.