Roy was enveloped in pitchy darkness. Suddenly, through the gloom, he heard a sound. It was the rasp of a padlock being inserted in the door above him. Then came a sharp click, and the boy knew that hope of escape from above had been cut off. If the men kept their promise, they would release him in their own good time, and that was all he had to buoy him up in that black pit.
But Roy, as those who have followed his and Peggy's adventures know, was not the boy to weakly give way to despair before he had exhausted every possible hope, and not even then.
But in the darkness he did bitterly reproach himself for falling into the rascals' trap so blindly.
"Well, of all the prize idiots in the world," he broke forth under his breath in the blackness, "commend me to you, Roy Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! You ninny!"
The boy felt better after this outbreak. He even smiled as he thought how neatly he had walked into the spider's web. Then he shifted his position and prepared to think. But, as he moved his foot struck something. A wallet, it felt like; he reached down, and, by dint of feeling about, managed to get his fingers on it.
The leather was still warm, and Roy realized that it must have been dropped into the cellar from the bearded man's pocket when he leaned over to see if Roy had reached the bottom of the ladder.
"Queer find," thought the boy. "I'll keep it. Maybe there's something in it that may result in bringing those rascals to justice."
He thrust it into his pocket and thought no more of it. His mind was busy on other things just then. If only he had a match! He felt in all his pockets without result, and was about giving up in despair, when, in the lining of his coat, he felt several lucifers. They had slipped through a hole in his pocket.
"Gee whiz! How lucky that Aunt Sally forgot to mend that pocket," thought the boy, eagerly thrusting his fingers through the aperture and drawing out a dozen or more matches.
"These may stand me in good stead, now. But I don't want to waste them. Guess I'll just light one to see what kind of a place I'm in, and then trust to the sense of touch if I see any means of escape."