"Now, Captain, you will step inside," said the guerilla, grimly. "And let me utter a word of caution. One of the negroes shall stand guard, and at the first attempt to escape he shall fire on you."
Artie entered the pantry, and the door was immediately closed, locked, and bolted. A moment later Gossley walked away and returned upstairs. What the negro Joe did, Artie did not know.
The cellar had been damp and unwholesome, the pantry was more so, and the first breath of air he took into his lungs made Artie shudder. Was it possible he would be kept in such a place as this for forty-eight hours, and in his wet clothing?
"I must get out,—if such a thing is possible," he said to himself. "But I must be careful what I do, or the guard will shoot at me. Those negroes fear their master, and they are bound to obey orders."
Waiting for a while, to make certain he was really alone, Artie brought forth a match and lit it. The tiny blaze revealed to him a long splinter of pitch-pine board, and this he ignited into a tiny torch, not daring to let it burn too freely for fear of being smothered by the smoke.
As has been said, the pantry was built of heavy planking. It was five feet from front to back and side to side, and in the rear were several shelves, now swept of their contents. Behind the shelving were several small boards, put up as if they covered a cellar window. Overhead were the beams and boards of the parlor floor of the mansion, and beneath was a cement bottom as hard as stone.
The under shelf in the closet was quite low, and removing the shelves above it, Artie used it as a seat, and gave himself up to his reflections. It must be confessed that he felt decidedly blue. He was caged like a rat in a trap, and what his captors intended to do next with him there was no telling.
"I wonder if they will send to father for money?" he asked himself. "Gossley intimated as much. This is a new way of handling a prisoner in this country. Gossley ought to be an Italian brigand. I shouldn't wonder if he sends a note to the colonel, threatening, if the money is not forthcoming, to shoot me. And he will shoot me, too—there is no doubt of that. The man has no more heart than a grindstone—he showed that when he attempted to hang Price, the miller."
Artie was not one to sit down and kick his heels in dejection. To him, 'while there was life there was hope,' and having examined the sides and front of his prison, he turned his attention to the rear. A little work loosened one of the small boards previously mentioned. He was about to tear the board away, when he heard footsteps in the cellar; and he shoved the board back into place.
It was Martha Bradner who had come down, accompanied by the negro Joe. Evidently the woman wanted nothing more than to render the young Unionist uncomfortable.