As to Frycollin, with his eyes shut and his mouth closed, it was
impossible for him to think of anything. He was more dead than alive.

For an hour the position of the prisoners remained unchanged. No one
came to visit, them, or to give them that liberty of movement and
speech of which they lay in such need. They were reduced to stifled
sighs, to grunts emitted over and under their gags, to everything
that betrayed anger kept dumb and fury imprisoned, or rather bound
down. Then after many fruitless efforts they remained for some time
as though lifeless. Then as the sense of sight was denied them they
tried by their sense of hearing to obtain some indication of the
nature of this disquieting state of things. But in vain did they seek
for any other sound than an interminable and inexplicable f-r-r-r
which seemed to envelop them in a quivering atmosphere.

At last something happened. Phil Evans, regaining his coolness,
managed to slacken the cord which bound his wrists. Little by little
the knot slipped, his fingers slipped over each other, and his hands
regained their usual freedom.

A vigorous rubbing restored the circulation. A moment after he had
slipped off the bandage which bound his eyes, taken the gag out of
his mouth, and cut the cords round his ankles with his knife. An
American who has not a bowie-knife in his pocket is no longer an
American.

But if Phil Evans had regained the power of moving and speaking, that
was all. His eyes were useless to him--at present at any rate. The
prison was quite dark, though about six feet above him a feeble gleam
of light came in through a kind of loophole.