The thrust was not delivered, because no one made a rush; in fact, all was perfectly still. And when, after a long pause, during which his imagination had been very busy peopling the dark cage with crouching enemies in various corners waiting for their opportunity to spring at him, he began cautiously to make little pushes with the steel point here and there, without result and ended by advancing softly towards the open door, to be checked by the spear bringing him up short with the point in the wood, it began to dawn upon him not only that the door was shut, but that he must have been asleep.
“How queer!” he muttered. “I was perfectly certain that the door was burst open, and I’m sure I heard a crackling sound.”
Thoroughly satisfied, after a little feeling, that the door was close shut, he turned round to face the bars, finding that while all elsewhere was pitch-dark, there was a faint suggestion of light there; inasmuch as he could just make out the black bamboo bars with the darkest of grey streaks between them, clearly enough cut save in one place, where, high up, there was a big blur.
He stood with his heart still beating heavily, consequent upon the startling manner in which he had been awakened.
And as he stood gazing with eyes whose pupils were dilated in the darkness, that blur, high up towards the top of the bars, seemed to wear a familiar shape, which idea grew and grew upon him to such an extent that he tried to give it a name, and said softly:
“Tchack!”
He was right, for in an instant it began to glide down the bars like a couple of the beads on a scholastic numeration frame, reaching the bottom lightly, to utter the same word.
“Why, however did you get out there?” said Stan excitedly. “What nonsense! I’m looking at the side instead of the front.”
He turned sharply, extended his hand, and the next moment touched the partition bars, and grew more confused.
“It isn’t the side,” he muttered; “this is the side; and that is the front, by the light coming there. Have you got out, Tchack?”