He was as brave as most lads of his age, but as he lay there, startled into a sudden wakefulness, it was impossible to help thinking of Adela’s words spoken that morning and his own light remarks, and for a time he felt in a strange state of perturbation.
All was perfectly still, and it was so dark that he could not for some time make out the shape of the window against the night sky; but inside his prison there was a faint light, so faint that it did not make the wall visible, and towards this he strained his eyes, wondering whence it came.
“Why, what a coward I am!” he said to himself, as he made an effort to master his childish fears. “Ghosts, indeed! What nonsense! I’m worse than a child—afraid of being in the dark.”
He lay listening with the straw rustling at his slightest movement, and then, unable to bear the uncertainty longer, he started up on one elbow.
As he did so there was a quick noise to his right, and he turned sharply in that direction.
“I might have known it,” he muttered—“rats. I daresay they swarm in this old place. How did that fellow get in? I saw no holes.”
Unable to answer the question, he turned his attention to the faint light that seemed to pervade the place, and, after a time, he made out that it struck down through some crack or crevice in the ceiling.
As he tried to make out where, it seemed to die away, leaving the place as black as ever; but now, in place of the depressing silence, he could hear that something was going on. There was a dull noise somewhere below him, making his heart beat fast with excitement, for it was an endorsement of his ideas that there was a cellar or vault. Then, in the distance, he fancied he could hear the rattle of chains, and the impatient stamp of a horse, with once or twice, but very faintly heard, a quick order or ejaculation.
“I wonder whether there are many rats here?” he thought, for he wanted to get up and clamber to the window, and look out to see if he could witness any of the proceedings of his captors.
It was an unpleasant thought that about the rats, for, as a matter of course, he began directly afterwards to recall all the old stories about people being attacked by rats, and half devoured by the fierce little animals; and it was some time before he could shake off the horrible idea that if he moved dozens of the little creatures might attack him.