“I often said I wished I could be took away, but I didn’t mean it, Mas’ Don; I didn’t mean it. What will my Sally do?”
“Jem, are you mad?” shouted Don. “This darkness—this cellar. It’s all black, and I can’t think; my head aches, and it’s all strange. Don’t play tricks. Try and open the door and let’s go.”
“What, don’t you know what it all means, Mas’ Don?” groaned Jem.
“No, I don’t seem as if I could think. What does it mean?”
“Mean, my lad? Why, the press-gang’s got us, and unless we can let ’em know at home, we shall be took aboard ship and sent off to sea.”
“What?”
The light had come—the mental light which drove away the cloud of darkness which had obscured Don Lavington’s brain. He could think now, and he saw once more the dark lane, the swinging lanthorn, and felt, as it were, the struggle going on; and then, sitting up with his hands to his throbbing head, he listened to a low moaning sound close at hand.
“Jem,” he said. “Jem! Why don’t you speak?”
There was no answer, for it was poor Jem’s turn now; the injuries he had received in his desperate struggle for liberty had had their effect, and he lay there insensible to the great trouble which had come upon him, while it grew more terrible to Don, in the darkness of that cellar, with every breath he drew.