“Like the shark which swallered the parasol,” sez I, for I was consid’able put out; “he had faith in his digestion and hoped the parasol was some new sort o’ health-food. But to get down to facts—Have you any weapon with you, and are you willin’ to fight?”
“I have no weapon,” sez the Friar; “but I am willin’ to do whatever seems best. I am trusting in the same power which upheld Gideon, and I ask to see no farther than he saw.”
This was the Friar all right, so I merely swallowed a couple o’ times and didn’t say anything. Whether he lived or died was the same to the Friar, as whether he lived in Idaho or Montana would be to another man; so I saved myself a certain amount of irritation by just thinkin’ quietly as to what was best for us to try. Fact was, I didn’t take, as much stock in Gideon just then as I did in Ty Jones.
“I’ll tell you what I think is best,” I sez after a bit; “for me to crawl down the hall in the hope that the watcher really has gone to sleep; while you two stand ready in this offset. If they chase me, I’ll run up the tunnel, and you spring out and take ’em at a disadvantage as they go by.”
O’ course they both wanted to do the crawlin’, but it was my plan, so I stuck out for it, and started. I was really glad to be out o’ the light again, and I crawled as gentle as though crossin’ a bridge of eggs. Before long my fingers struck a boot, and I felt of it ex-treme-lee careful. If ever I go blind, my experience durin’ those days will help consid’able in transferrin’ my eyesight to my fingers.
The feller had toppled over again’ the right wall, and I crept up alongside, holdin’ my gun by the barrel, and ready to swat his head as soon as I had located it; but the’ was no use—the man had already died. He had been shot twice, but they thought he could last a while on guard, and this was why we had been able to cross the lighted place.
Just beyond this, I came upon another offset, on the opposite side from where the candle was. We hadn’t noticed it that mornin’ ’cause we had gone out along the other wall. I heard some heavy breathin’ in here; but I also heard some one tossin’ about an’ mutterin’, and I hardly dared risk an examination. I looked back at the splash of light, and it seemed mighty cheery and sociable, compared with the darkness and company I was in.
It’s astonishin’ the way pictures fly across a feller’s mind at such a time: I saw the boy down at the foot of the stairs, I saw him as he must have been, a few years before some quick, rash deed of his had drawn a veil across the laughter in his eyes; I saw the feller in the offset, and wondered how much it had taken to turn the expression of his face into that beastlike hunger for revenge, and then dozens of schemes and plans for capturin’ Ty began to flash upon me; but each time, the presence of the woman spoiled everything. They had used her for a shield once, they would do it again, and I couldn’t see a way to get around her.
We knew ’at Ty had vowed he would never be taken alive; and I couldn’t see what we would do with him even if we did take him alive; but I could see that he would take pleasure in draggin’ as big a bunch into the next world with him as possible, and yet every scheme ’at came to me was blocked by the presence of the woman. Finally I crept a little way into the offset. My hand touched a piece of cloth, I felt over it with nothin’ except the ridges on my fingers touchin’; but just when I made sure it was the Chink, he moved and sat up. I stopped breathin’; but after a minute, he sighed and settled back.
I waited a little longer and then crawled back and told what I had discovered. “If the’ was only some way we could throw a light into that offset,” sez I, “I think we could fix ’em.”