We had been stripped naked while we slept and all our equipment and outfit, defensive and aggressive, including the four chests, had been taken from us.
We were helpless prisoners in the hidden city of the Tcha.
Whatever confidence in ourselves we had felt before we endured this irreparable loss was now reduced to a minimum. I am quite sure there was not a coward among us, as the term is generally understood; but our present predicament was serious enough to make the bravest of the brave anxious and despondent.
We said nothing for a time. There was nothing to say. Archie, who usually grumbled and complained, now startled us by an abrupt laugh.
“What fools we were to think we could outwit these Tcha,” he said, in a voice that was positively cheerful. “They haven’t been hidden from the world all these thousands of years without getting a little civilized in their own way; and, by jinks! it was as clever a dodge as I ever heard of. No threats, no force, no back-talk. They laid down the law to us, and found we wouldn’t agree to it. So they made us come to time, in the pleasantest possible manner. They deserve to win, those fellows. Hurrah for the Tcha!”
“I’m inclined to think,” said Allerton, with a sigh, “it’s all up with us now. I’m sorry, lads, that I drew you into this trap.”
“Don’t mention it, Paul,” I replied, trying to shake off a sense of impending doom. “We got along famously under your leadership until just now, and what has happened is in no way your fault. Let’s brace up, all of us, and take things as they come.”
“Of course,” remarked Joe, in his slow way. “I’ve been in places nearly as desperate as this before, and managed to wiggle out alive. We seem to be beaten, at present, but it’s a good omen that these people didn’t kill us while we lay unconscious and at their mercy.”
“That’s true,” nodded Ned Britton. “While there’s life, there’s hope.”
“We won’t show the white feather, anyhow,” said Archie. “If it comes to dying, as it may, we’ll die game.”