'Accursed coward and villain!' muttered Allan, looking upward; but all was darkness there and around him.
The hours stole on. He staggered up, and at last began to explore the place in which he found himself—a somewhat needless act, as he knew it but too well, having many a time, when a boy, with fear, awe, and curiosity, lowered down a candle at the end of a string, and seen it swaying to and fro far down below till the damp vapour extinguished the flame.
Yet he felt with his right hand the circular wall of massive masonry which enclosed him, carefully again and again, in the desperate hope of finding some outlet, though he knew well by the history and traditions of the place that no such thing could ever have existed; but he could not remain still or withstand the nervous desire for exertion—to be up and doing something; till again he sank on the floor in utter weariness of heart, albeit that heart was aflame with rage.
He uttered shouts for help from time to time, till his voice became hoarse and began to fail him, and his spirit too, as he knew the enormous thickness of the old walls around him; and tears of rage almost escaped him as he pondered over the cold and calculating villainy, of which he was now so mysteriously the helpless victim.
He had no doubt that the hours of the night were now stealing on, and that long ere this his absence must have been discovered, and speculation would be rife. He had his watch, but he was in utter and blackest darkness, and his box of cigar lights having dropped from his pocket he had no means of consulting the dial.
He could but lie there in great pain and passive misery—a misery that seemed so unnatural that it was like a nightmare, an unreality, that must pass away as suddenly as it had come upon him.
How terrible and indescribable, however, grew his aching thoughts as the weary time went on!
He might die of cold, of hunger, of agony—die within a few yards of his own hearthstone—die thus under his father's roof, and close by where at that very moment the whole family were a prey to bewilderment and distress by his sudden disappearance!
Oh, it was all too maddening to think of. So there he could but lie, buried, immured, entombed in darkness; chill as death, not a breath of pure air in his nostrils; not the faintest glimmer of light, and no human sound in his ears. As the hours crept on he could scarcely distinguish waking from sleeping, a dream from reality; and at times all seemed to become chaos, and he could think of nothing unless it were a buzzing in his head and the acute agony of his broken arm.
Anon he would utter a feeble shout for 'help,' but his own voice seemed to return to him; beyond the walls that enclosed him it would not go. He knew that there are situations in life incident to misery and painful excitement, when the human machinery by the rapidity of mental action is worn out sooner than its alloted time, and he began to consider how long it was possible to exist without food or water.