He sunk upon the miserable chair that was in the room, and groaned aloud in the bitterness of his despair.
Then he began to wonder that no one came to the attic, and from that he thought it just possible there might be nobody in the house, and that his own fears had converted some casual noise into the sounds of footsteps on the stairs.
There was hope in this conjecture, and he crept cautiously to the door, and standing at the stair-head, he listened attentively, but could hear no noise.
“I wonder,” he muttered to himself, “if I could venture down stairs. There might be no one between me and the street-door, and possibly I might not be recognised by the gaping crowd outside, and so escape my present most dangerous situation.”
It was some minutes more before he could make up his mind to venture down the stairs; and when, at length, he did, he went step by step with such extreme slowness and caution, that it was a long time before he reached the bottom of the first flight. The least creaking sent the blood to his heart with a frightful gush, and by the time he had reached the floor below the attic, he was in a state of terror and nervousness that would have alarmed any one to behold.
He sat down upon the bottom stair, and as far as he was able to command them, he bent all his faculties to discover if there was any one in the rooms opening from the landing.
One door was ajar, and he now felt satisfied there was no one there, but another door was close shut, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could command his nerves to crawl past it. His foot now was upon the first stair from the top of the next flight of stairs, when he nearly fell headlong from top to bottom, as he heard a man’s voice below say,—
“Thomas—I shall want you in your attic, presently.”
Then a step sounded up the stairs, and Jacob Gray had just time to crawl backwards into the room with the door ajar, before he must have been seen.
But he thought whoever is coming here, may enter this room, and he glanced hastily around him for some place to hide in.