“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I’ve got you!”

“What is this?” I cried, struggling.  “Who is it?  Help, help, help!”

Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain.  Sometimes, a strong man’s hand, sometimes a strong man’s breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall.  “And now,” said the suppressed voice with another oath, “call out again, and I’ll make short work of you!”

Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little.  But, it was bound too tight for that.  I felt as if, having been burnt before, it were now being boiled.

The sudden exclusion of the night and the substitution of black darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter.  After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he wanted, and began to strike a light.  I strained my sight upon the sparks that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of the match; even those, but fitfully.  The tinder was damp — no wonder there — and one after another the sparks died out.

The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel.  As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending over the table; but nothing more.  Presently I saw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and showed me Orlick.

Whom I had looked for, I don’t know.  I had not looked for him.  Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out.  Then, he put the candle away from him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me.  I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall — a fixture there — the means of ascent to the loft above.

“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, “I’ve got you.”

“Unbind me.  Let me go!”

“Ah!” he returned, “I’ll let you go.  I’ll let you go to the moon, I’ll let you go to the stars.  All in good time.”

“Why have you lured me here?”

“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look

“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”

“Because I mean to do it all myself.  One keeps a secret better than two.  Oh you enemy, you enemy!”

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble.  As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound stock.