Scarlett could bear the agony of his thoughts no longer; at any cost he must pass beneath that opening, and rejoin his father, and to this end he stepped forward softly, to find that he had planted his foot upon a rotten stick fallen from above, and lightly as he trod, the dry, decayed piece of wood parted with a loud noise.
Scarlett turned cold, and the chilly moisture gathered upon his brow and within the palms of his hands.
“It is all over!” he muttered, as his hand went involuntarily to the hilt of his sword; and then he dragged it from its sheath, and raised the point, thinking of how strong his position was, and how few men would dare to descend with that sharp point awaiting the first enemy who came.
Then, half stifled by holding his breath, he began to breathe freely once more, for there came a low sigh from above, then a faint rustling, and then the regular, low breathing of some man asleep.
Scarlett stayed no longer, but stepped quickly across the wood-strewn patch of the floor, and then hastened along the passage, and up the few steps in the total darkness; and after a very little groping about, found himself beside his father, who was sleeping peacefully, while his head was cool, telling how the fever of his wounds had gone down.
Chapter Forty Five.
Companions in Misfortune.
Scarlett Markham passed some hours by his father’s side, listening to his breathing in the darkness, and from time to time taking his hand as a low moan was uttered, accompanied by a restless movement; but as the time passed on, in spite of anxiety and his own weariness and pain, an intense desire for food of some kind kept on attacking him, and each time with more force.