He marked this when the light went out, and promptly went to it and explored it with his arm. The slit widened at the other side, and there was evidently a chamber beyond. He clapped his hands against the lip of the slit, and set his feet against the wall, and pulled with the utmost of his strength. If once he could widen the opening sufficiently to clamber through, possibilities lay beyond. But from the weight of wall pressing down above, he could not budge a single brick by so much as a hairs-breadth, and so he had to give up this idea, and, stewing with rage, set about further reconnoitring.
The darkness put his eyes out of action, but he had still left his hands and feet, and he went round with these, exploring carefully.
Presently his search was rewarded. Opposite the opening he had discovered before, was another slit in the overhanging wall of this bottle-shaped prison, and this also he attacked in the hope of wrenching free some of the bricks. He strained and panted, till it seemed as though the tendons of his body must break, but the wall remained whole and the slit unpassable; and then he gave way, almost childishly, to his passion of rage, and shouted insults and threats at Rad el Moussa in the vain hope that some one would hear and carry them. And some one did hear, though not the persons he expected.
A voice, muffled and foggy, as though it came from a long distance, said in surprise: "Why, Captain, have they got you here, too?"
Under cover of the darkness, Kettle blushed for shame at his outcry. "That you, Murray? I didn't know you were here. How did you guess it was me?"
The distant voice chuckled foggily. "I've heard you giving your blessing to the hands on board, sir, once or twice, and I recognized some of the words. What have they collared you for? You don't photograph. Have you been messing round with some girl?"
"Curse your impudence; just you remember your position and mine. I'll have respect from my officers, even if I am in a bit of a fix."
"Beg pardon, sir. Sorry I forgot myself. It sha'n't occur again."
"You'll go to your room for three days when we get back on board."
"I decided that before I left the ship. I can't have my officers staying away from duty without leave on any excuse. And if they have such low tastes as to bring themselves on the level of common mop-headed portrait painters and photographers, they must pay for it."