More than once he heard voices, and once they came so close that
he was sure they had come upon his tracks, and he crept some distance
down his tunnel to be out of sight. But the alarm proved a false one,
and the time passed very slowly.
As he lay, he thought of the dead man with the bound hands and feet in
the silent chamber behind him, bound by the forebears of these men, who,
in turn, were seeking him, and would treat him as ruthlessly if they
found him.
He took the lesson to heart, and braced himself to patient endurance,
though, indeed, he began to ask himself gloomily what was the use of it
all. In the end, their venomous persistence must make an end of him. One
man could not fight for ever against a whole community.
And at that he chided himself. Not a whole community! For was not Nance
on his side--hoping and praying and working for him with all her might
and main? And her mother, and Grannie, and the Vicar, and the Doctor,
and the Senechal? He was sure they all knew him far too well to doubt
him. And all these and the Truth must surely prevail.
But the long strain had been sore on him, and in spite of his anxieties
he fell asleep in his hole, and dreamed that the dead man came crawling
down the tunnel, and dragged him back into the chamber, and tied his
hands and feet, and went away, and left him to die there all alone.
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