“I wonder what Snags was driving at,” he murmured.
He took another sip of the wine and smacked his lips as if to test its flavor.
“It has a peculiar taste,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder if it’s drugged. Perhaps they want to poison me. I wonder if I have already taken enough to harm me.”
He resolved to wait and see if it produced any effect on him, first taking the precaution to pour a considerable quantity of it in a crevice in the rocky floor, so that if they should examine the bottle it would appear that he had drank freely of it.
The effect of the small portion he had taken soon manifested itself in a feeling of drowsiness which took possession of him. It was not a natural fatigue, but rather a numbness such as might have been produced by a powerful opiate.
“I don’t believe I have taken enough to cause serious results,” he reflected. “I will take a little exercise and see if I cannot work it off.”
He walked rapidly to and fro in his apartment, first taking the precaution to remove his boots so that his footsteps might not be heard.
He soon had the satisfaction of feeling wide-awake and clear-headed. Indeed he was keener and more alert thanever, for his suspicions had made him watchful and nervous.
In order to arrive at a complete solution of his captors’ plans, however, he lay down with the bottle near him, and prepared to feign deep sleep on the approach of either Snags or Roake. It was some hours before he was disturbed, and he improved the time to take occasional exercise, so as to make sure that sleep should not overtake him.
About midnight his quick ear detected a movement on the other side of the door. He immediately composed himself in a reclining position, with one arm thrown partially over his eyes.