But Herc was not the sort of lad to give anything up without making a try to better his condition. As soon as his head, which had been sadly shaken in his fall, stopped aching a little, he got up from the pile of old sails and began a further examination of the cellar.
The first thing that struck him was that the floor was very wet. Slimy, slippery mud was under foot and a green weed grew wherever it could secure a roothold. His next discovery was that the walls were marked near to the top of the cellar by a distinct line.
Above this line their color was the dirty gray of the cement; but below, it was stained green as if from the action of water. Herc puzzled a good deal over this. He could not account for it by any theory of mere dampness. Just then he was far indeed from guessing its true significance.
One thing, however, he was sure of: the cellar was close to the sea, for the sharp, acrid tang of the salt water mingled with the damp, decaying odor of the place, like a healthy, wholesome influence in a fever-stricken hospital ward.
His survey completed, Herc sank back on his pile of old sails to think matters over further. Not that he felt that there was really anything to be considered, save the fact that he was helpless and must depend upon outside aid for escaping from his predicament.
But no outside aid, he knew, was likely to reach him there. He wondered what was going to become of him. Since he had taken that plunge through the suddenly opened trap, he had heard nothing from above, no trample of feet, no sound of voices.
Was it possible that those in the house had deserted it precipitately and had left him there to perish miserably like a rat in a hole? The thought chilled the hot blood in his veins and started the cold perspiration on his forehead. Herc was no coward, but the thought of facing death alone in that dark, dank hole might have unmanned many a sterner soul than he.
In his despair at the thought that he had been abandoned to his fate, Herc set up shout upon shout. But after a time he stopped this as being a useless waste of strength which it behooved him to husband for he knew not what emergency. Herc was not a lad given to beating about the bush. He faced the bald facts as he found them, and in the present situation he was unable to discover one crumb of comfort.
Then, too, what Kenworth had said about Ned kept recurring to his mind with disquieting effect. He could not bring himself to believe that Ned was, as the midshipman had said, dead at the bottom of the Sound; but nevertheless the idea kept repeating itself over and over in his mind dishearteningly.
"What a fool I was ever to come in here at all," he muttered to himself bitterly. "It all comes of following my nose. Every time I do it, I land in trouble—but this is just about the worst ever. I wonder——"