Ned, brave and resolute as he was, shivered.

He was oppressed by the night and the place.

It seemed to him, for the moment, that the ghosts of stern Cortez, and of the Aztecs themselves were walking out there.
Then he did a characteristic thing.

Folding his arms in front of him he grasped his own elbows and shook himself fiercely.

The effort of will and body banished the shapes and illusions, and he went to work with firm hands.
He tore the coverings from his bed into strips, and knotted them together stoutly, trying each knot by tying the strip to the bar, and pulling on it with all his strength.