cham; and the word came hot as an oath....

One instant I saw the banker toss his arms like a semaphore; the next we
were overborne. Of that I retained chiefly a bewilderment at the force
of our captors and the ease with which they dealt with us. Shy with the
gun they might be, and indeed it is no natural weapon of their race; but
these operators knew the use of trip and hamstring--the hugger-mugger
arts; none better. My feet were driven from under me; my wrists
paralyzed; I was caught and wound like a cocoon; and when I dropped it
was on the cushions of the automobile. And, though this might be a
slight-enough feat regarding myself, it was the measure of their
cleverness that I found Robert Matcham already there, pocketed in a
helpless bale. I believe he had no chance so much as to lift a hand.

"You won' be nize with me?" The banker's chuckle floated back to us.
"Then you can try being not nize with our Number One, and see 'ow you
like it!"

He left us that threat to ponder during our journey to Machico.... For
it was Machico. Where else? As soon as they whisked us away toward the
eastern coast road I knew it must be Machico. Where else should they
take Robert Matcham, whose five centuries looked down on him this night?
The rain had ceased; the clouds were lightening and shredding out to sea
when we arrived.

There stands a tiny ruined _fortaleza_ on a hill near the southeast
point of Madeira, whereof I know more than most folks. You may seek and
never find it, for it is now quite lost among the sugar fields,
over-topped by the rank cane. Its square tower, whence the first lords
of the soil used to keep stern ward against the Moorish marauder, was
long ago shorn to the lowly uses of husbandry and built about with
arbors; but its walls are a yard thick under the plaster, thick enough
for a dungeon--or an inquisition chamber. No place could be more secret,
and a man might lie hid there, like a toad in a hollow rock, never to be
traced.

This was the obscure prison to which they brought Robert Matcham and
myself by tortuous ways along the terraces. And here they carried us in
from the forecourt to a low-ceiled hall and set us up for judgment,
where many another unhappy captive must have stood before.

It was dim and chill as a vault, relieved only by a hanging iron lamp,
which shed one yellow splash of light in the center. For some time I
could discern nothing outside that wavering radiance on the deep-worn
flags