The weird old person opened his broad blue eyes and fixed Turnbull with a stare extraordinarily severe. “You are quite sure,” he said, “I cannot help you?”
“Quite sure, thank you,” said Turnbull with broken brevity. “Good day.”
Then he turned to MacIan who was standing close behind him, and whose face, now familiar in all its moods, told him easily that Evan had heard the whole of the strange dialogue.
“Curse those cruel beasts!” cried Turnbull. “They've turned him to an imbecile just by burying him alive. His brain's like a pin-point now.”
“You are sure he is a lunatic?” said Evan, slowly.
“Not a lunatic,” said Turnbull, “an idiot. He just points to things and says that they stick out.”
“He had a notion that he could help us,” said MacIan moodily, and began to pace towards the other end of his cell.
“Yes, it was a bit pathetic,” assented Turnbull; “such a Thing offering help, and besides—— Hallo! Hallo! What's the matter?”
“God Almighty guide us all!” said MacIan.
He was standing heavy and still at the other end of the room and staring quietly at the door which for thirty days had sealed them up from the sun. Turnbull, following the other's eye, stared at the door likewise, and then he also uttered an exclamation. The iron door was standing about an inch and a half open.