“No, Brother, not for another hour, for so I was instructed; why I do not know. Help me now to close the trap, but not quite lest the spring should refuse to work again, and to replace the table over it exactly as it stood before. Who knows that some officer or spy might not be moved to pay us a visit, although the jailer said that none would come.”
“Aye, who knows, Temu?”
So they closed the trap, setting a piece of reed from a food basket between its edges so that it did not shut altogether, and dragged back the table to its place. Then they sat down to eat. Scarcely had they done so when Temu pressed Khian’s foot and looked towards the door.
He looked also and, though he heard nothing, saw, or thought that he saw, a white face and two glowing eyes set against the grating and watching them, a sight that made his blood turn cold. In an instant it was gone again.
“Was it a man?” whispered Khian.
“A man, or perchance a ghost, Brother, for I heard no footfall, and of such this place may well be a home.”
Then he rose, and taking a linen cloth that had been laid over the food, he thrust it into the grating.
“Is that not dangerous?” asked Khian.
“Aye, Brother, but to be watched is more dangerous.”
To Khian it seemed as though that hour would never end. Moment by moment he feared lest the door would open and all be discovered. Yet no one came, and indeed they never learned whether they had seen a face at the grating or whether its appearance was but a trick of their minds.