The long walk from the station and the excitement of the last hour had greatly wearied me; so I groped around in the dark until I found the bed with which the room was provided, and soon had forgotten all about the dreary conspiracy in a refreshing sleep.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MAN WITH THE RING
Toward morning a tramping of feet aroused me; the door was thrust open long enough for another prisoner to be admitted, and then I heard the bolts shoot into their fastening and the soldiers march away.
It was not quite dark in the room, for the shutters were open and admitted a ray of moonlight through the window. So I lay still and strained my eyes to discover who my companion might be.
He stood motionless for a time in the place the soldiers had left him. I made out that he was tall and stooping, and exceedingly thin; but his face was in shadow. Presently, as he moved, I heard a chain clank, and knew he was hand-cuffed in the same manner as myself.
Slowly he turned his body, peering into every corner of the room, so that soon he discovered me lying where the moonlight was strongest. He gave a start, then, but spoke no word; and again an interval of absolute silence ensued.
His strange behavior began to render me uneasy. It is well to know something of a person confined with you in a small room at the dead of night, and I was about to address the fellow when he began stealthily approaching the bed. He might have been three yards distant when I arose to a sitting posture. This caused him to pause, his form well within the streak of light. Resting upon the edge of the bed and facing him, my own features were clearly disclosed, and we examined each other curiously.
I had never seen him before, and I had little pleasure in meeting him then. He appeared to be a man at least fifty years of age, with pallid, sunken cheeks, eyes bright, but shifting in their gaze, and scanty gray locks that now hung disordered over a low forehead. His form was thin and angular, his clothing of mean quality, and his hands, which dangled before him at the ends of the short chain, were large and hardened by toil.
Not a Brazilian, I decided at once; but I could not then determine his probable nationality.
“Likewise a prisoner, señor?” he inquired, in an indistinct, mumbling tone, and with a strong accent.