For half a minute Nick listened intently, but the startling sounds were not prolonged, and presently only silence reigned in the wine-vault.
Stop a bit—not quite silence only!
From one corner came a faint noise which Nick’s ear was quick to detect.
It was the steady drip, drip, drip of water, from some point higher than the floor.
Nick recalled seeing a stagnant pool in the corner from which the dripping sounded, and he rightly inferred that there must be some water-supply above, possibly in the stable, and that a considerable leak existed.
“My first work must be that of getting my hands at liberty,” he soliloquized, after a few moments.
They were tied behind him, but that mattered little to Nick Carter.
While the lantern was in the vault, during his talk with Badger, Nick had visually examined the surrounding stone walls, and had discovered several places where the rough corners of the stones protruded a little, forming tolerably sharp edges.
Against one of these he backed, after rising to his feet with some difficulty, until he could bring the rope about his wrists to bear against the edge of the stone.