All the while, though the entire episode transpired in less than a quarter minute, Floyd was fiercely repeating:
“Get him, boys, get him! Get him! Get him!”
There was absolutely no occasion for these sanguinary commands.
For the ruffians who had entered instantly attacked the swaying detective from behind. They fell upon him like wolves upon a wounded stag.
Blow followed blow in quick succession, with merciless force, until Nick sank, dazed and bleeding, upon the floor, scarce conscious of what afterward transpired.
In a vague way, however, as one senses such things in a dream, or a hideous nightmare, Nick knew that he was being hurriedly bound and robbed of his revolvers. He heard the brutal voices of his assailants, but they sounded faint to him and far away.
He knew, in a dazed way, that the great heap of rags was hurriedly pushed aside, that a trapdoor which they had concealed was quickly opened, and that he then was hurriedly carried down several low steps and through a dark, earthy-smelling passage, then up other steps, and into a stone-walled room lighted only by the feeble rays of an oil lamp.
Then the cobwebs began to clear from his battered head.
He heard Floyd’s hard voice more distinctly, as harsh and hard as nails. He could see the faces of his assailants more plainly, the two brutal ruffians, and the third none other than Bug Bannon.
“Get out, Bagley, and close the shed door,” Floyd then was commanding. “You slip out, Bannon, and make sure no other dicks are around, and that none else is wise to this. Rope him to that ring in the wall, Gorman, hands behind him, and be sure that he’s tied fast.”