The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-07-20

ed for having pressed this man too |
hard. 1t seemed that he had intended |
to act honestly all along, and the sus-
piciousness of his behavior doubtless
arose from some difficulty of custom or
language. So the sailor took RAIDS
limp hand in his own and shook it
cordially and at the same t.ale made Il
handsome apology for his own share
of the misunderstanding. Your wor-
ship must excuse me, he said, but I'm
always apt to be a bit suspicious about
lawyers. What dealings I've had with
them have nearly always turned out
for me unfortunately. And now, II
YOU don't mind, We'll go into your
courthouse, and you can hand me
over my mate, and I'll take him back
to the ship. Enough times been vast
ed already by both of u.s.
The Arab, still bowed and submis-
sive, signed toward the doorway, and
Kettle marched briskly out along the
narrow dark passage beyond, With
RAIDS sandals shutting in escort close
at his rear The house seemed large
one and rambling. Three times RAIDS
respectful fingers on his visitors sleeve
signed him a change of route. The
corridors, too, as is the custom in Ara
bia where GOODNESS is the first consid-
GRAFTON, were dimly lit, and with the
caution which had grown to be his sec
ond nature Kettle instinctively kept all
his senses on the alert for announcement
surprises. He had no desire that Rad
| ell NIoussa should forget his submis-
| siyeness and stab him suddenly from
| behind; neither did he especially wish
| to be noosed or knitted from round any
of the dusky, sudden corners.
In fact, he was as much on the qui
| vive as he ever had been in all his
| long. Wild, adventurous life, and yet
Rad ell Moussa, who meaut treachery
| all along, took him captive by the most
| vulgar of time Worn stratagems. or
| sudden the boarding of the floor sank
| beneath Kettles feet. lie turned and
with desperate effort tried to throw
| himself backward whence he had come,
but the boarding behind reared up and
hit him a violent blow on the hands
| and head, and he fell into a pit below.
| For an instant he saw through the
gloom the face of Rad ell Moussa sud
denly turned yirulent, splitting at him
in hate and then the swing floor slam
med up into place again, and all view
of anything but inky blacEness was
completely shut away.
Now, the fall into the pit, where Rad
ell Moussa had caught Captain Kettle,
Il; to]a
| ably deep, and. but for the fact that
| the final blow from the flooring had
| shot him against the opposite side of
| the pit and so broken his descent at
| the expense of his elbows and heels,
he might very well have landed awk-
| wardly and broken q limb or his back
in the process. But Captain Owen Ket-
tie was not the man to waste time over
| -. s--'S''f - =; an nilhhin1 of
1 the way he had been tricked and
thirsting to get loose and be revenged
He had his pistol still in it's proper
pocket and unchanged, and if the willy
Rad had shown himself anywhere
within range just then it is q certain
thing that he would have been shot
dead to square the account
But Kettle was, as l have said, wedg-
ed in with darkness, and for the pres
ent revenge must wait till he could see
the man he wanted to shoot at. He
scrambled to his feet and fumbled in
his pocket for match. He found one,
struck it on the sole of his trim white
shoe and accommodated quickly.
The place he was in was round and
bottle shaped, measuring some ten feet
across it's floor and tapering to small
square where the trap gave it entrance
above. 1t was a prison clearly and
there was evidence that it had been re-
Gently used. 1t was clear also that the
only official way of removing a prison
er was to get him up by ladder or rope
through the small opening to which
the sides converged overhead More
over. to all common seeming, the place
was simply unbreakable, at least to
any creature who had not either wings
or the power of crawling up the under
side of slant like fly.
But all these things flashed through
Kettles brain in far less time than it
takes to read them here. He had only
two matches in his possession, and he
wished to make all possible use of the
first, so as to keep the second for emer-
gencies And so he made his survey
with the best of his intelligence and
speed.
The walls of this bottle shaped prison
were of brick, built without visible
mortar and held together Git seemed
probable) by the weight of earth press
ing outside them, but just as the match
burned his fingers and dropped to the
| floor, where it promptly expired, his
| eye fell upon an opening in the mason
ry. 1T was mere slit, barely three
inches wide, running vertically up and
| down for some six courses of the brick,
and 1t was about chin high above the
ground. He marked this when the
light went out and promptly went to it
and explored it with his arm. The slit
| Widened at the other side, and there
was evidently a chamber beyond He
| clapped his hands against the lip of the