He wheeled about and raised it to strike; then his arm dropped,
unable to obey for the brutal horror of it. In another instant he
and Desiree, too, had been overpowered and carried to the floor
by the savage rush.
This he told me as we lay side by side in a dark cavern, whither
we had been carried by the victorious Incas. I had expected
instant death; the fact that our lives had been spared could have
but one meaning, I thought: to the revenge of death was to be
added the vindictiveness of torture.
We knew nothing of Desiree's fate. Harry had not seen her since
he had been crushed to the floor by that last assault. And
instead of fearing for her life, we were convinced that a still
more horrible doom was to be hers, and hoped only that she would
find the means to avoid it by the only possible course.
I have said that we again found ourselves in darkness, but it was
much less profound than it had been before. We could distinctly
see the four walls of the cavern in which we lay; it was about
twelve feet by twenty, and the ceiling was very low. The ground
was damp and cold, and we had neither ponchos nor jackets to
protect us.
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