CHAPTER X.
A CHANGE OF PRISONERS Heavens, how the night crawled! Phil Turner, bound hand and foot, and cruelly cramped in every limb, hitched himself to a sitting posture and began to calculate how long he probably had to live.
There was no moon, but the starlight entered his prison--it was no more than a mud hut, but had it been built of stone walls many feet thick his chance would scarcely have been lessened.

It was merely a question of time, he knew, and he marvelled that his fate had been delayed so long.
To use his comrade's descriptive language, he had expected "a knife and good-bye" full twenty hours before.

But neither had been his portion.

He had been made a prisoner before he was fully awake, and hustled away to the native fort before sunrise.

He had been given _chupatties_ to eat and spring water to drink, and, though painfully stiff from his bonds, he was unwounded.
It had been a daring capture, he reflected; but what were they keeping him for?
Not for the sake of hospitality--of that he was grimly certain.