Wearily, agonisingly the hours dragged on.
By this time he was certain that night had passed and day had come again; and what must the thoughts of his people be? Inquiries and searches would be made he knew, but who would ever dream of searching for him where he was then.
He had not yet begun to suffer from hunger, but he had a considerable thirst, and hunger would come too.
He thought of all he had read of the endurance of men on rafts and in open boats at sea; of entombed miners buried deep in the bowels of the earth, and his hair seemed to bristle up at the recollections. Hunger, thirst, and an unknown death—or death at such craven hands.
'Oh, God,' he moaned, 'will aid never—never come?'
In that gruesome place and time there occurred to him—ghastly memory!—thoughts of the unknown and forgotten dead whose matted bones had been found in it by antiquarian explorers, as he had mentioned to Holcroft—the remains of unfortunate creatures flung in there by his forefathers.
Could it be that this unlooked-for fate of his was to be a species of expiation for them? And was he to die now by this death, when life had become to him so much dearer than ever?
If his disappearance remained utterly unaccounted for, and his death became—as of course it would be—a thing of the past, and forgotten even by those to whom he was dear, might not Hawke Holcroft regain such influence as he had ever possessed over Olive and make her his own? She would be free then; there would be no obstacle, and no other rendering of the will necessary, now that he was removed.
Never again to see her face or the faces of those he loved and who loved him so; to die a rat's death, within arm's length of them almost! Could his ancestor have foreseen, when he formed this infernal trap, that one of his own race was to perish therein, and thus!
After a time, amid all this tangle of terrible thoughts, he began to forget where he was; his senses partly left him; he believed himself to be with the regiment—the Black Watch, with their dark tartans and historic crimson plumes; he heard the crash of the drums, the braying of the pipes, and saw many familiar faces around him, those of Cameron and Carslogie among others. Now the regiment was going into action; he saw the line forming, the eyes of the men lighting grimly up as they loaded, and the sunshine flashed upon the ridges of levelled steel. The dream seemed a palpable one, and, with a shout louder than he thought he could utter, he called upon them to follow him in the charge!