“Run! Run! Run for your life! Don’t you hear me?”
“But wherefore should I run? By Zeus, this is altogether the most extraordinary condition of affairs that has ever come under my cognizance!”
By this time the prisoners were nearly hysterical.
“Run! Run!” they kept shrieking. “Don’t come inside!”
“But, by Zeus!” gasped the Parson, who it must be said was leaning halfway through the hole in the rock and peering into the darkness, listening to the medley of muffled voices in consternation. “But, by Zeus! why should I run? In the name of Pallas and her distaff, I demand——”
“There’s somebody in the cave! They’ve shut us in here! We’ll die! Oh, oh! And you’ll be killed!”
“By Zeus!”
“Run! Run! Get help! Don’t come in! Do you hear?”
By this time the puzzled scholar began to comprehend. His friends, and he, too, perhaps, were in peril. If he could have seen the horrible figure that had been stealing upon him with the stealth and swiftness of a panther he would have realized his danger, indeed.
“By Zeus!” he called. “I begin to perceive. Forsooth, I will immediately hie myself—— Good heavens!”