"Hullo! they've untied my arms," he exclaimed; "and it isn't so hot as
it was. They must have taken off the cloak."
Yes; the cloak was gone and his arms were free. So were his legs.
No; his legs were securely tied, but the straw over his head had been
taken away.
He lay perfectly still for a few minutes, thinking, and with his eyes
trying in all directions to pierce the thick black darkness by which he
was surrounded, but without avail.
"I wonder where I am," he thought, as, after forcing his mind to obey
his will, he went over in review all the adventures that had befallen
him from the time he left the ship till he was jolting along in that
donkey-cart, half-suffocated in the boat-cloak and straw.
Then there came a dead stoppage. He could get no farther. He knew he
must have gone to sleep, and the probabilities were that the cart had
been backed into some shed, the donkey taken out, and he had been left
to finish his sleep.
"I wish I knew what time it was," thought Hilary. "How dark it is, to
be sure. I wonder where the donkey is; and--hullo! where are the sides
of the cart?"
He felt about, but could touch only straw; and on stretching his hands
out farther, it was with no better result.
He listened.
Not a sound.
Strained his eyes.
All was blacker than the blackest night.
What should he do? Get up? Crawl about? Shout?
He could not answer his own questions; and as he lay there wondering
what would be best, that strange feeling of confusion that oppresses the
strongest of us in the dark when we are ignorant of where we are, came
upon him, and he lay there at last with the perspiration gathering in
big drops upon his brow.