“Hah!” ejaculated the Rajah with a long expiration of the breath.
“Then he went back hastily to the steps. I saw the lamp growing less till it disappeared, leaving only a pale glow from the top; then it was extinguished, and I was in the intense darkness once more, as I crept softly after him and stood and listened till I heard a heavy, gliding noise and a dull concussion, and then all was still.”
Again there was silence, and Dick drew out a handkerchief and wiped his streaming brow, looking hollow-cheeked and strange.
“I am hot and faint,” he said half-apologetically, as if speaking to the Rajah and Wyatt together: “I have been twenty-four hours without food, and I am exhausted with trying to find a way out of that place.”
“Hah!” cried the Rajah; “then you were shut in?”
“Yes, sir. When I had waited and then went to the top of the stairs, and then along the narrow passages, I could not find the opening out for a long time. Then I found that the narrow doorway behind the pillar had been closed and made fast, and by degrees I grasped the fact that the whole of the pillar had been thrust back against the passage wall, and was now fastened there, probably by a block being lowered, or one of the stone figures being pushed into a groove to keep it shut.”
“Then you were a prisoner,” said the Rajah.
“Yes, sir, till about an hour ago.”
“When the door was opened,” cried Wyatt excitedly. “Opened by the sergeant, who had missed you.”
“The sergeant did not know I had gone down below into the great vault,” said Dick quietly; “and for aught I know, it may be fastened now.”