CHAPTER XX

HOW I LAY IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK


On the third day of my confinement, and as near as I could tell about
midday, the small round porthole of my cabin was suddenly darkened by a
flap of sail let down from above, purposely I judged, and shortly
afterwards I found the ship was at rest.

It was after dark when Torode came in, and, without a word, bandaged my
eyes tightly, and then called in two of his men, who shouldered me, and
carried me up the companion and laid me in a boat. The passage was a short
one, about as far I thought as, say, from the anchorage at Herm to the
landing-place. Then they shouldered me again, and stumbled up a rocky way
and along a passage where their feet echoed hollowly, and finally laid me
down and went away. Torode untied my hands and feet and took off the
bandage.

By the light of his lantern I saw that I was in a rock room, with rough
natural walls, and sweet salt air blowing in from the farther end. There
was food and water, and a mattress and blanket. He left me without a word,
and locked behind him a grating of stout iron bars which filled all the
space between floor and roof. I was long past puzzling over the meaning of
it all. I ate my food, and lay down and slept.

A shaft of sunlight awoke me, and I examined my new prison with care. It
was a bit of a natural rock passage, such as I had often seen on Sercq,
formed, I have been told, by the decay of some softer material between two
masses of rock. It was about eight feet wide, and the roof, some twenty