Procuring a lantern, the robber-captain and his friend passed out into the main entrance. This they followed some distance until they came to where a wall, crossing the passage at right angles, disputed their further entrance.
“This,” said Dungarvon, tapping the wall before them, “is the door to the ‘Dead Fall.’ See here. By pressing a spring in this niche, the door is unlocked, and by pressing another in this niche, the door rolls back into a cavity in the wall and the passage is continued. No one not acquainted with the cavern would ever know but what the passage terminates here. Shall we enter the Dead Fall?”
“Certainly,” returned Strange: “by all means. I should like to see the man that was thrown into a fifty-foot shaft and climbed out alive.”
The robber-captain opened the door and they advanced into the great chamber, wherein Willis and Ralph had been entrapped, and where they were now imprisoned with Barker.
Closing the door after them, they advanced to where the prisoners lay upon a couch of old skins. They all arose to a sitting posture when they heard the two men entering.
Willis and Ralph looked sad and dejected, but Barker: God of mercy! he resembled a skeleton more than a human. He was wasted away to a mere shadow, while long beard and hair of snowy whiteness hung down upon his breast and shoulders. His hands were like the claws of an eagle, and great, pitiful eyes stared at the robber-chief with a wild expression.
“Well, my larks, how are you getting along?” asked Dungarvon, with a demoniac leer.
“Oh, God! we are dying by inches,” returned Barker.
The robber-captain laughed mockingly, while Solomon Strange turned away with tears of pity in his eyes.
In a moment more the robber-chief and his companion left the Dead Fall. When they had got back into the captain’s room, a fresh bottle of brandy was brought out and placed upon the table.