“I am proud of you, my son,” said Mr. Gray. “And it is a rebuke to us who are older. I know, deep down in my heart, that you are right. After years among these people, unharmed, made nearly well when I thought my feebleness would destroy me, I should be thankful to that Great Power—and I am!”
“Let’s all think ‘we are going to get out all right,’” Nicky suggested. “Think as hard as we can.”
No one replied. Perhaps, with all other help apparently denied them, they all had a mind to do as Nicky urged: at any rate the black room, with its air rapidly growing more stale and heavy, was so silent that they heard, through the place where the upper end of the barrier failed to touch the door frame, the muttering of several guards in the tunnel.
Ages passed, or so it seemed. In fact, hours did go slowly into the past, and nothing happened.
“Listen!” whispered Tom, finally, when the air had become so oppressive that they all began to feel heavy and dull. “Did I hear somebody walking?”
“Yes,” answered Bill. “They are changing the guard, I guess.”
“Poor Caya,” said Cliff. “I feel sorry for her. She is all alone, in some hole as dark as this: and all on account of us.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “But she is alive—and so is her sister—because of us.”
“I wonder where her brother is,” Nicky mused.
“Sh-h-h!” warned Bill. “Be quiet and if the stone moves, let’s all make a rush. I hear somebody fumbling at the stone.”