Back he went to his position, and there he watched for the rest of the day, elated with his discovery of Tony, saddened by the delay, grinning at the thought of the Malatesta and their confederate compelled to watch, almost motionless, for the supposed prowlers.
At last darkness threatened. Those small banditti, the mosquitoes, as bloody-minded as the Malatesta, began to sing and to stab. The assassin owls made mournful cadences in keeping with the scene and its half-tragic human purposes, while the whippoorwills voiced the one element of brightness and hope.
The young fellow in the narrow, dark, log-walled cabin, with its barred window and padlocked oaken door, had been long disconsolate. But now, for the first time in many days, hope came to him as he walked back and forth, fighting pests, still tortured in mind, fearing failure, wondering, praying, yet proud and never beseeching, waiting for another and perhaps a brighter day.
For three months he had been a prisoner, waking from a fevered sleep after a long illness, his splendid constitution alone serving to doctor him, he had found himself mysteriously at sea, in the locked cabin of a tossing yacht that knew no harbor of rest. He had been denied even the chance to talk to, or to know his jailers. He had managed to keep alive on the rough, often unpalatable food poked under his door. There was no response to his callings, hammerings or threats. A less balanced, hopeful, kindly, gentle fellow would have gone insane.
Then, gagged and bound, he had been dumped about almost like a sack of wheat and landed in this horrible place alongside of which his prison room in the yacht was a palace. Now here for the first time had come a friendly voice, that of more than a friend, indeed, and he had again seized upon hope.
Yes, he would lie low, be patient, hope on and wait.