“What would you?” he said. “You told me to knock him senseless, and I did so.”
“You certainly did,” said Lawless, with a brutal laugh.
“Well, if we are going to keep him in the pit over night, we had better put him there now,” remarked Durkee.
“All right. Bear a hand in packing him down stairs again, then. Confound it, I wish we hadn’t brought him up here. He’s a heavy youngster.”
“He is that,” agreed Durkee. “And he’s got muscles like iron. He’d be an ugly customer in a rough-and-tumble fight, all right.”
“No danger of such a thing as that occurring,” said Lawless, as he lifted Nat’s feet, while Durkee took his head.
Followed by the South Americans, one of whom held the lamp, they descended the stairs, and opening a trap-door in the passage, they clambered down another flight leading into a damp, earthy-smelling cellar. In the centre of this cellar, the light revealed a deepish pit. Into this pit Nat was lowered. All this time he had given no sign of consciousness and was as limp as a rag-doll.
“Now, get the dogs, Manuello,” ordered Lawless.
In obedience to his commands, the South American approached a small door at the rear of the cellar and opened it. He whistled softly, and two ferocious, half famished looking blood-hounds came leaping out. Their dripping fangs were drawn back, exposing sharp, white teeth.
“Watch that boy carefully,” said Manuello in Spanish to the brutes.