re, and
they will free us at once." But when he addressed first one and then
another of the quartette, they paid no attention whatever to what he
said, contenting themselves with signing to the prisoners to eat and
drink. Instead of obeying, however, Phil continued to talk to them,
alternately explaining, ordering, and finally threatening the men; and
it was not until, some twenty minutes later, when they proceeded to bind
the hands of both behind their backs again, that Stukely realised, too
late, that the quartette were evidently deaf and dumb. Thus Phil missed
his breakfast that morning, while Dick, the practical one of the two,
secured his, having fully availed himself of the opportunity afforded by
his unbound hands to eat and drink.

In this eminently unsatisfactory and comfortless fashion the hapless
prisoners passed the ensuing ten days, seeing nobody but the four deaf
mutes, who twice daily brought them food and water, and stood over them
while they ate and drank, afterward securely binding them again;
although this seemed to be an altogether unnecessary act of cruelty;
since so strongly constructed was their place of confinement--even the
door being a massive slab of stone--that, had they been entirely
unbound, they could not possibly have forced their way out.

At length, however, on the twelfth day of their captivity, some two
hours after their morning meal had been served to them, they were quite
unexpectedly visited by their four deaf-and-dumb jailers, who, having
unbound their ankles, signed to them that they were to leave the noisome
hole where they had hitherto been confined; and when the pair passed
through the stone door they found themselves in a long passage, where
they were immediately surrounded by an escort of a dozen soldiers armed
with sword, spear, and shield, all of bronze, and wearing breastplates
and helmets of polished bronze, the latter adorned with the tail
feathers of some bird that gleamed with a brilliant metallic golden
lustre. Hemmed in by these, the prisoners were marched along the
passage until they reached a flight of stone steps which the party
ascended, finding themselves, at the top, in a long, spacious, lofty
corridor, lighted at intervals by circular openings high up under the
flat stone ceiling. Along this corridor also the prisoners were marched
until they reached a doorway closed by two bronze doors, at which the
officer of the party first knocked, and immediately a