"Do not imagine for one moment that I intend to do so. I am a man of nerve and iron will, and I can die like one. You have shackled me hand and foot and placed me in this death trap, but your ears shall not be greeted with any moans or cries of complaint. The vengeance you have mapped out will fall short in that."
A sneer broke from Halloran's lips; he could not help but admire the dauntless courage of the man before him, but he would not have admitted it for anything the wide world held. With a fiendish laugh that rang in Lester's ears for long hours afterward, Halloran turned and left him, sauntering into the outer room and banging and locking the door after him.
It was a night never to be forgotten by Lester to the last day of his life. His mouth was parched with thirst; the blood in his veins seemed turning to lava, and his eyes were scorched in their sockets.
Once the door suddenly opened and Halloran thrust in his head, exclaiming:
"Let me give you a piece of news to dream over, my dear fellow: Your Cousin, Kendale, is with the beauteous Faynie just now, probably holding her in his arms, kissing the lovely rosebud mouth. 'Pon my honor. I envy the lucky dog; don't you?"
The door closed quite as quickly again, and Lester was alone with his bitter thoughts.
"What have I done that a just God should torture me thus?" he cried out in an agony so intense that great beads of cold perspiration gathered on his forehead and rolled unheeded down his white cheeks. "If he tortured me to the gates of death I could endure it, but the very thought that my innocent darling, my beautiful, tender little Faynie, is in that dastardly villain's power, fairly goads me to madness. Oh, Heaven! if I but had the strength of Samson for but a single hour, to burst these cruel bonds asunder and fly to my dear one's side!"
But, struggle as he would, the thongs which bound him, rendering him powerless to aid the girl he loved, would not give way.
Thus a fortnight passed, and Halloran was beside himself with wonder to find each morning that Lester was still alive and that he had not gone mad.
But Lester Armstrong's guardian angel had not quite forgotten him; Heaven had not intended that he should die by thirst and starvation in that isolated cabin, and served him in a strange, unlooked-for way.