He left me without a word, and locked behind him a grating of stout iron bars which filled all the space between floor and roof.

I was long past puzzling over the meaning of it all.

I ate my food, and lay down and slept.
A shaft of sunlight awoke me, and I examined my new prison with care.

It was a bit of a natural rock passage, such as I had often seen on Sercq, formed, I have been told, by the decay of some softer material between two masses of rock.

It was about eight feet wide, and the roof, some twenty feet above my head, was formed by the falling together of the sides which sloped and narrowed somewhat at the entrance.