PRISONERS.
For two or three minutes after the door was shut and bolted not a word was spoken by the three boys. All were sorely bruised, and bleeding from many cuts and wounds, and breathless and exhausted by the way in which they had been carried along and the force with which they had been thrown down. Jack was the first to speak.
"I say, how are you both—are either of you badly hurt?"
"I don't know yet," Tucker replied. "It seems to me there is nothing left of me. I am sore and smarting all over. How are you, Arthur?"
"I don't know," Arthur said. "I wonder that I am alive at all, but I don't know that I am really much hurt."
"Well, let us try and see," Jack said.
"See!" Jim repeated scornfully. "Why, I can't see my own hand."
"Well, I mean let us find out if we can stand up and move about. We shall find out, anyhow, whether any of our bones are broken."
With some difficulty and with many exclamations of pain the lads rose to their feet.
"Are both you fellows up?" Jim asked.