In the end the man’s better instincts triumphed.
Buffalo Bill and his friends did not at once know this, however.
Night came early in the town that lay in the deep pit of the plain, the evening shadows deepening there even before the sun had set on the world outside.
Within the marble prison the darkness was soon so dense that, as Wild Bill said, “it could be felt.”
No food had been brought to the prisoners, nor had any messenger come to them, after that first announcement, conveyed by the woman herself, that it had been decided in council they were to die.
They crouched in the gloom and talked as the slow hours slipped by, while they waited, they did not know for what.
They tried the gold-copper bars of their prison again and again, but the bars were too strong and well set; they could not even shake them. They had no tools with which to hack at the marble walls, and probably if tools had been in their possession they could have accomplished nothing in that way.
“Ach!” grunted the baron, after a long interval of silence. “Dose vite Inchin mans vass a liar peen, aber he ton’d come unt hellup me, like as he said. Uff I hat someding to ead, I vouldn’t veel so pat, maybe. Here iss a town full of golt, and noddings to ead.”
“There is enough to eat in the town, no doubt,” commented Wild Bill, “but it’s like the gold—we can’t get it.”
“Aber I hund vor golt eenymore I hobes somepoty vill keeck me ka-vick.”