He took another step forward and gazed so fiercely in the man’s eyes, that, great as was the disparity in their ages and strength, Allstone shrank back step by step until he reached the doorway, when, if not afraid of Hilary, he was certainly so much taken aback by the young man’s manner that he was thoroughly cowed for the moment, and shrank away, slipping through the door and banging it after him, leaving the prisoner to his meditations.
“Come, I’ve got a bed,” he said, laughing, “and a chair and a table, and—hurrah! the very thing.”
He then seized the table and turned it upside down to gaze beneath, and then replacing it, ran to the window, pulled up the cutlass, and going to the table once more, turned it over and inserted the point of the weapon between the side and the top, with the result that it stuck there firmly, and upon the table being replaced upon its legs it was quite concealed.
“There!” he cried, “that will be handy, and I daresay safe, for they will never think of searching that after bringing it in.”
This done, he proceeded to roll up his worsted for future use, and placed it in one pocket, the piece of cord with which he had drawn up the milk being in another.
“Why, I might have used that instead of the worsted,” he said, as he remembered it for the first time; but he recollected directly after that it would have been too easily seen.
Then he inspected the two trusses of straw, and made his bed close beside the opening he hoped to make by raising the slab; and then, having carefully examined the spot, he listened to make sure that he was not heard, and taking out his pocket-knife, went down upon his knees and began to pick out the hard dirt and cement that filled the cracks around the broad, flat stone.
It was rough work, but he had the satisfaction of feeling that he was making very fair progress, scraping up the pieces from the place around, and as fast as he secured a handful going to the window and throwing it out with a good jerk, looking out afterwards to see if it showed, and finding it was concealed by the long grass.
He was well upon the qui vive, having placed the straw close to the place where he was at work, and holding himself in readiness at the slightest alarm to scatter a portion over the slab.
But no one came, and he worked steadily on hour after hour till the crack all round was quite clear, and he had no need to do more till he tried to raise the stone by using the cutlass as a lever.