"Have I not heard your men here addressing you, sir? Is your title a secret?"
"Tut, tut, I am not accustomed to be answered back. An American, hey? So you thought Englishmen and English manners not good enough for you rebels over there; you thought——"
The blood flew to my face, and I blurted out hastily, regardless of my own safety:
"Is it English manners to capture a young lad like this and——"
"Ho! ho! So you take it upon yourself to question me? Let me tell you that for a wink of the eye many a man has met with a worse death than shall be meted out to you, Mr.——"
"Jones—Hiram Jones, sir," said I, "at your service."
"None of your insolence, Mr. Hiram Jones! Perhaps we can show you that Mr. Hiram Jones the American is not quite the great man that he thinks himself."
I could not help wondering if the Bo's'n and that tiresome Minion were looking down upon me and listening to these threats and insults. It roiled my blood to imagine the Minion's grin and his delight in what would seem to him nothing but a very pretty comedy. I glanced up toward the direction of the stone balcony, and I saw with great relief of mind that there was no sign of any opening at that spot near the roof, the vines seeming to grow flatly against the cavern wall. It looked from where I stood as if a flea could not have sheltered behind those masses of green.
"There is no help for you there," grinned the Admiral. "There is no opening from our audience chamber but the opening where you came in." I withdrew my eyes at this positive statement. Thank God, they were ignorant of the dual nature of the cave!
"And your party, where are they?"