Slowly, with cautious feeling of his way, by bringing his head or feet first into contact with the new space to be explored, he made the circuit of the room; rolling from side to side across the dusty floor, bringing himself up sharply against the walls on either side, in the hope of finding anything—a hook, a nail, a projecting bit of wood—against which he might rub his head, hoping thus to remove the bandage from his eyes, perhaps the gag from his mouth.
But his efforts were without reward. The room was bare. Not a box, not a bit of wood, not a projecting hook or nail; only a few scattering rags which, as he rolled among them, baptized him with a cloud of dust and reminded him, by their offensive odor, of the foul cellar in Papa Francoise’s deserted K—street abode.
There was nothing in the room to help him. It was useless to try to liberate himself. And he lay supine once more, cursing the Fate that had led him into such a trap; and cursing more than all the officious, presumptuous meddler, the jail-bird and ruffian, who had thus entrapped him, Van Vernet.
“If I escape,” he assured himself, “and I will escape, I’ll hunt that man down! I’ll put him behind the bars again if, to do it, I have to renounce the prospect of a double fortune! But I won’t renounce it,” thought this hopeful prisoner. “When I find them again, and I will find them, I’ll first capture this convict son, and then use him to extort the truth from those old pirates—the truth concerning their connection with Alan Warburton, aristocrat. And when I have that truth, the high and mighty Warburton will learn what it costs him to send a black servant to dictate to Van Vernet!”
Easily conceived, this pretty scheme for the future, but its execution depends upon the liberation of Van Vernet and, just now, that seems an improbable thing.
Moments pass away. They seem like hours to the helpless prisoner; they have fitted themselves into one long hour before the silence is broken.
Then he hears, for all his shut-up faculties seemed to have merged themselves into hearing, a slight, a very slight sound in the outer room. The door has opened, some one is entering. More muffled sounds, and Vernet knows that some one is creeping toward the inner room. Slowly, with the least possible noise, that door also opens. He hears low whispering, and then realizes that two persons approach him. Are they foes or friends? Oh, for the use of his eyes—for the power to speak!
Presently hands touch him. Ah, they are about to liberate him; but why so silent?
They are dexterous, swift-moving hands; but his fetters remain, while the swift hands work on.
They are robbing him. First his watch; his pocket-book next; then shirt studs, sleeve buttons, even his handkerchief.