It was likely to be a considerable time, he began to reflect discontentedly, and he had no particular liking for his commission. The other fellows would get their feed in Caxton, he argued. Jorrocks would not go without his breakfast for the United States Treasury. They would also get drinks, good and plenty. At this thought he took an empty flask from his pocket and lugubriously smelled it. He was a fool, he said to himself, and perhaps that was the only true word he had spoken that day. But, in his opinion, it applied specifically to his consent to remain here, as if he, too, were bound and gagged.
Once more he sniffed the departed delights of the empty flask. Suddenly Captain Treherne heard no more the regular impact of his steps as he tramped the long length of the vacant hall. There was a livery stable at a way-station of the railroad some eight miles distant, a goodish tramp on an empty stomach, but the odor of the flask endued him “with the strength of ten.” He was known there as an ex-jockey of some success, he was appreciated after a fashion by its employees; he could count on their hospitality and conviviality, and perhaps borrowing a rig he could return before Binnhart and Jorrocks would be here accoutered with their tools. The prisoner could not report his defection, even when liberated, for he could not know where in that great building he had seen fit to bestow himself to enjoy, perchance, what he was pleased to call, “a nap of sleep.”
Thus silence as of the tomb settled on the deserted building. The shades of night gradually wore away and the pale gray light of a sunless and melancholy day pervaded the dreary vistas of the bare uninhabited ruin.
In his inexorable view of the sanctity of his promise Colonel Kenwynton had no impulse to confide the details of the revelation he had received or to take counsel thereon. Still, he could but look with an accession of interest at Adrian Ducie when he met him at the breakfast table, the passengers of the _Cherokee Rose_ dallying over the meal, prolonging it to the utmost in the dearth of other interest or occupation.
Although Ducie seemed to have mustered the philosophy to ignore the serious aspects of this most irksome and dolorous detention, it had darkened all the horizon to Floyd-Rosney’s exacting and censorious mood. “I can’t imagine, Captain, how you should not have been on the lookout for the formation of an obstruction capable of grounding the boat,” was his cheerful matutinal greeting.
