“Let me stop and talk to you, then.”
There was no reply to either proposal, and just then there came a hoarse—
“Ram ahoy!”
“A-hoy!” cried the lad. “I must go now. That’s Jemmy Dadd shouting for me.”
Archy made no reply, and the boy rose, set down the basket beside where he had been kneeling, and stood gazing down at the prisoner.
“Like some ’bacco to chew?” he said. Then, as there was no answer, he went slowly away, with the prisoner watching the dull glow of the lanthorn till it disappeared behind the great pillars, there was a faint suggestion of light farther on, then darkness again, the dull echoing bang of the heavy trap-door and rattle of the thin slabs of stone which seemed to be thrown over it to act as a cover or screen, and then once again the silence and utter darkness which sat upon the prisoner like lead.
He uttered a low groan.
“Am I never to see the bright sun and the sparkling sea again?” he said sadly. “I never used to think they were half so beautiful as they are, till I was shut up in this horrible hole. Oh, if I could only get away!”
He started up now, and began to walk up and down over a space clear of loose stones, which he seemed to know now by instinct, but he stopped short directly.
“If that young ruffian saw me, he’d say I was like a wild beast in a cage. He’d call me a monkey again, as he did before. Oh, I wish I had him here!”