“You could not escape.”
“I should like to try,” said Humphrey, smiling.
“It would be utter madness, sir. Give me your word of honour that you will not attempt to leave this old palace, and you shall come and go as you please.”
“No, sir, I will remain a prisoner with the chances open.”
“As you will,” said the buccaneer, coldly; and he rose and left the chamber, looking thoughtful and absent, while Humphrey lay back on his couch, gazing hard at the great stone idol, as if he expected to gain information from its stern mysterious countenance.
“Where have I seen him before?” he said, thoughtfully; and after gazing at the carven effigy for some time he closed his eyes and tried to think, but their last meeting on the deck of the sloop was all that would suggest itself, and he turned wearily upon his side.
“He seemed to have heard of our family, and his manner was strange; but I can’t think now,” he said, “I am hot and weak, and this place seems to stifle me.”
Almost as he spoke he dropped asleep—the slumber of weakness and exhaustion—to be plunged in a heavy stupor for hours, perfectly unconscious of the fact that from time to time the great curtain was drawn aside and a big head thrust into the dim chamber, the owner gazing frowningly at the helpless prisoner, and then entering on tiptoe, to cross to the window and cautiously look out before returning to the couch, with the frown deepening as the man thought of how narrow the step was which led from life to death.
He had advanced close to the couch with a savage gleam of hatred in his eyes when Humphrey Armstrong moved uneasily, tossed his hands apart, and then, as if warned instinctively of danger, he opened his eyes, sprang up, and seized a piece of stone close by his side, the only weapon, within grasp.
“Well,” said Bart, without stirring, and with a grim look of contempt, “heave it. I don’t mind.”