The cellar was a perfectly good one, as cellars go. It was a small, square, hollow cube in the earth, not damp, not especially cold, and not evil-smelling. Its walls were brick. So was its floor, which was covered with clean straw, a discovery that made its present occupant suddenly cautious in handling his matches. He had no wish to be burned alive in this underground trap. The place was apparently used as a sort of store-room. There was an old trunk in it, and some broken-down pieces of furniture. The second match burned out.
Affluent though he was in matches, it was no part of the young man's plan to burn his entire supply at one sitting, as it were. For half an hour he crouched in the darkness, pondering. Then, as an answer to certain persistent questions that came up in his mind, he lit a third match. He greatly desired to know where lay the outlet to that cellar, and in this third illumination he decided that he had found it. There must be some sort of a trap-door at the top, through which he had been dropped or lowered. Those wide seams in the whitewashed ceiling must mean the cracks due to a set-in door. Undoubtedly that door had been bolted. Also, even assuming that it was not fastened, the ceiling was fully eight feet above him. There was no ladder, there were no stairs. His third match burned out.
In the instant of its last flicker he saw something white lying on the straw beside him. He promptly lit another match, and with rising excitement picked up the sheet of paper and read the three-line communication scrawled in pencil upon it:
Out to-morrow. Flash-light, candles, cigarettes, and matches in box at your left. Blankets in corner. Be good.
The recipient of this interesting document read it twice. Then, having secured the box at his left--a discarded collar box, judging by its shape and labels--he drew forth the flash-light, the cigarettes, the matches, and the candles it contained. Lighting one of the candles, he stuck it securely on a projecting ledge of the wall. By its wan light, aided by the electric flash, he took a full though still dazed inventory of his surroundings. The ophidian Shaw had puzzled him again.
He had handled Shaw very roughly for a time. He could still feel--and he recalled the sensation with great pleasure--the thick, slippery neck of the creature, and the way it had squirmed when he got his fingers into it. Yet the serpent evidently bore no malice. Or--a searing thought struck Laurie--having things his own way, he could afford to be generous. In other words, he was now perfecting his plans, while he, Laurie, was out of the way.