An instant later he caught sight of a black tunnel looming up before him—the passageway that led out—to safety! to friends! With redoubled speed, the lad plunged in; he ran as never had he run before in his life. For behind him he heard the quick, pattering footsteps of his pursuer, and the panting breath.
It was a race for life, and it was short. Indian reached the end, flung himself against the rock that barred the entrance. And the next instant he felt a heavy body leap upon his back; felt two griping, clawlike fingers close upon his gasping throat. And then down he went, kicking, struggling, gasping, suffocating, then all grew dark before him.
A minute or two later the maniac crept softly out from the entrance of that black tunnel. There was yet a fiercer gleam of triumph in his eyes and he raised his clinched hands above him as if in frenzied joy.
Then he turned and shook them menacingly at the dungeon where the rest of his prey were lying.
What of them, meanwhile?
Nothing much, except that they were suffering agony that cannot be described—agony of dread, suspense, uncertainty. Everything was hidden from them. Who had shut them up? And what of Indian? His silence surely boded no good. And would they suffocate? Or starve? Or what on earth would happen next?
They stood and stared at one another in helpless dread; even the bold Texan was unnerved by his awful situation. They remembered that the Parson had said a man would suffocate in that vault in half an hour. Was that to be their fate, then? They waited, counting the seconds in dread.
But the fates had not, it seemed, meant them for so kindly a death as that. The air in the room did not grow close, though they waited and waited, wondering why it was. They realized at last. They had once dug several small holes in the top wall of masonry to further a practical joke of theirs. There was also a crack between the iron door and the bottom of the cave. The combination was all that saved the five captives from asphyxiation.
And yet that might have been better than what stared them in the face. They had no implement to pierce the wall. The floor of the cave was rock. The fiend who had shut them in would surely never let them out! And what then? Starvation!
Thinking over that horrible prospect a sudden idea flashed over Mark. It made his heart bound with sudden hope. The Parson!