His captor laughed, or rather emitted a low rumble. “Not long,” he croaked, hoarsely. “Not long.” “My friends will be after me in the morning.” “Let ’em!” and again came that rumbling laughter. “It will go hard with you if they find me here.” “Don’t worry; they won’t find you.” “What do you mean by that?” But the other only laughed again by way of answer. “Was it you who struck me out there in the stable?” “It surely was.” “What had I done?” A spasm of hate crossed the ferocious face. “You hadn’t no business out there nor around here.” “Maybe not,” Allan admitted. “Let me go and I’ll clear out.” The words were greeted by a burst of laughter, so wild that Allan was suddenly convinced that he had to do with a wild man, a lunatic wholly irresponsible for his actions. The thought sent a deeper chill through him. “Let me go,” he urged more gently. “I have done you no harm.” “Ain’t you, though!” retorted his strange companion. “Well, you’ll never do nobody else no harm, neither.” And without heeding the entreaties Allan sent after him, he went out and closed the door. Allan heard his footsteps die away along the hall outside, and then, after a moment, came that queer murmur of voices which he had heard from the back door, only louder and clearer. And a sudden conviction leaped into his mind. The missing train crew was imprisoned here also. He listened with bated breath as the murmur grew and grew, and finally died away as though it had spent itself. He judged that his captor had visited the other prisoners to make sure they were all safe, and had then departed. But who was this wild man? What sort of monster was this which had been let loose upon the world? How, single handed, had he been able to capture five men? And what was his object in doing so? Here were three questions to which no reasonable answer seemed possible. Allan felt almost as though he were living through some terrible nightmare, from which he must presently awaken. Surely such things as this could not happen here in Ohio, in the midst of a thickly populated country! In the Middle Ages, perhaps; but not here in the twentieth century! The pain of his position had become excessive, and he rolled over on his back, and sought to ease himself a little. He could feel that his hair was clotted with blood, and from the pain in his shoulder he was convinced that a bone had been broken—his collar-bone, probably. His head grew giddy after a while and a deathly sickness came upon him. The close and fetid atmosphere of the room seemed to stifle him. He shrieked aloud, but there was no response, and presently he lapsed into a sort of half-consciousness.