To escape the awful gloom, Peveril lighted a fire and sat beside it in forlorn meditation, carefully feeding it one stick at a time, and longing for some sound to break the oppressive silence. Finally, faint with hunger, he recalled the bit of game that he had stored away ready for cooking. Fetching this, he quickly had it spitted on a sliver of wood and broiling with appetizing odor over a tiny bed of coals. It smelled so good as it sizzled and browned that all his repugnance vanished, and he was only impatient for it to be cooked. The moment it was so he began to devour it ravenously, regretting at the same time that he had not half a dozen rats to eat instead of one.
He felt better after his meal, and a new courage crept into his heavy heart as he again sat in meditation beside his flickering blaze. Why he should feel more hopeful he could not imagine, for no glimmer of a plan for escape had presented itself.
It was not until he had once more stretched himself on his flinty bed, with a block of wood for a pillow, and was trying to forget his wretchedness in sleep, that he knew. Then he sprang up with a shout.
"What an idiot I am! What an absolute idiot! Where did the draught that blew out my light come from? From up that sloping passage, of course, and a draught can only be caused by an opening of some kind to the outer air. If I can only find it, I believe I shall also find a way out of here. So, old man, cheer up and never say die! You'll live to stand on top of the world again, yet—see if you don't!"
CHAPTER XVIII
FROM ONE TRAP INTO ANOTHER
The light of another day was dimly penetrating those underground depths before our prisoner was prepared to make his last effort for liberty. For all the aid he would receive from the pitiful amount allotted to him he might as well have started hours earlier; but while he longed to make the trial he also dreaded it. The thought of that box-like passage, through which he would be obliged to force his way without a chance of retreat, was so terrible that he shrank from it as we all shrink from anything dangerous or painful. Then, too, if he should escape, he would want daylight by which to guide his future movements. So, after tossing for hours on his hard bed and considering every aspect of his situation, he finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
For breakfast he had only water, but of this he drank as much as he could, for he knew not when he would find another supply. Then he selected such of the copper tools as he thought might prove useful. Into one of them, which was a sort of a pick, he fitted a rude wooden handle, while the others, which had cutting edges and were in the nature of knives, he thrust into his pockets. Having thus completed his simple preparations, he took a long look, that he well knew might be his last, on the daylight that was now so doubly precious, and then resolutely faced the inner gloom of the ancient mine.