Chapter Fourteen.
“It’s all over!”
Night had long taken the place of day, and sound after sound in the great gate-house had put Stan on the alert; but no one had come to the door, and as he rested upon the spear-handle the prisoner underwent pains which endorsed his ideas that he was to be starved into submission. In fact, he grew so hungry that all his pride died out, and in the darkness he humbled himself so that he was glad enough to allay his starving pains by seeking for and picking up some of the fruit and scraps of cake that had been thrown to the strange foreign devil, or wild beast, that the guard of the gate had on view.
“Oh, it’s horrible to come down to this!” muttered Stan as, tired out with standing in spite of the support from the spear-shaft, he sat down and ate sparingly just enough, as he put it, to keep himself from feeling faint. But he was terribly hungry, and cake, bread, bananas, and an orange proved, in spite of being gleaned from the cage floor, not bad; so that he did not content himself with enough to keep him from feeling faint, but unconsciously ate heartily, and felt much better. His spirits began to rise, and after a good, hearty draught from the water-pot, which, fortunately, he had not exhausted, he was so far from being starved into submission that he cut something very much like a caper as he threw himself into an attitude with the spear, looked in the direction of the doorway, and crying, “Come on!” muttered afterwards, as he made a thrust at an imaginary enemy, “Oh, how I should like to serve some of you out for this!”
He listened, but there was not a sound to be heard. Then he seated himself with his back to the side-wall, so that he commanded the open partition facing him, the door being to his right, and the front of the cage to his left, while he held the spear ready for action across his knees.
“They’ll wait till they think I’m asleep,” he muttered, “and then pounce on me. But I’m not going to sleep, and if any one does come sneaking in he’ll have a prick from this spear that will send him out quicker than he came in. Wonder what father would think if he could see me now! And Uncle Jeff. I wish he were here. No, I don’t. I shouldn’t like any one I know to be in such a predicament. I say, I don’t feel frightened, for they are cowards and no mistake. Fancy their being ready to run from a boy like me! They won’t dare to hurt me, because I’m English. I’d give something, though, to have poor old Wing here. I do hope he has escaped—’scaped—I’d—’scape—hah-h-h-h!”
This last very softly, and then Stan heard no more, for weariness and his large meal had proved too much for him. He was fast asleep.
He was not wide awake when he sprang to his feet with spear levelled, ready to drive it at the first Chinese soldier who made a rush at him from the door he believed to have been burst open with a sharp, crackling sound.