His mind, now active, ran back to the final scene in the kitchen.

The trap-door in the ceiling, evidently a sliding arrangement, explained the mysterious disappearance of the owner of the eye; he had been whisked up through the aperture by confederates and the trap-door closed before it could be discovered.

The smoking kettle no longer puzzled him, now that he knew of the secret room above the kitchen; a skilfully concealed blow-pipe could have produced the phenomenon.

The space in which he was now lying, half suffocated, was doubtless a part of the cleverly designed excavation at the back of the hovel, the lower half being the kitchen, the upper an actual gateway to the open air somewhere in the mountainside.
That he had fallen into the hands of a band of conspirators was also quite clear to him.

Whether they were brigands or more important operators against the Crown, he was, of course, in no position to decide.