I was so closely bound that I was barely able to move my head, but I turned it about as well as I could and gazed round me very earnestly and curiously. But the place was in total darkness excepting for a faint red glow upon the roof above me, and I could not turn my head sufficiently to discover the source of this light. The roof itself I could barely make out, but it seemed to be formed of rough earth or rock. That I was not alone was abundantly clear, for the place resounded with the murmur of voices, and with various noises as if a number of persons were engaged in some kind of handicraft, and all these sounds had a peculiar reverberating quality as sounds have in a vault or empty building. The number of persons I judged to be considerable, for, although the hum of talk was loud and continuous, I could not separate any phrases or words nor distinguish what language was being spoken. Now and again I caught the clank as of a metal bucket set down on a hard floor, and the gurgle of water poured from one vessel into another; indistinct sounds of hammering came at intervals, and once or twice I thought I could hear the blowing of bellows. The tight bands of rope which still encircled my arms and legs caused me very severe pain, and the more so by reason of the swelling caused by the blows that the ruffianly priest had dealt me, and it was intolerably irksome to lie on the hard floor unable to change my position in the slightest degree. So unbearable did the suffering become that, as hour after hour passed, I began to long for the return of my tormentors, although I felt that their arrival would be the signal for the infliction of new tortures the very thought of which made me shiver with horror. For there was now no doubt of the circumstantial truth of Almeida’s story. I had verified it step by step in every particular but one, and the time was drawing near when I should receive the last dreadful proof--when the awful secret of the cavern would be revealed to me. At length, after what seemed a very eternity of misery, a faint flickering yellow light appeared on the roof and spread to the adjacent wall, and as it grew brighter the shadow of a man loomed vague and gigantic, gradually dwindling in size and growing more distinct as the light drew nearer, until there swept into my field of view a man carrying a clay dish on which was a conical heap of shea butter with a rush wick, forming a sort of primitive candle. He was accompanied by two others, in one of whom I recognised my acquaintance with the bandaged head.