Then he was left to himself once more, but only for a few moments: the interval ended when the two appeared again, this time bringing Rose in similar fashion. Not until she had been put down beside him did he discover that Alan was likewise a captive, trussed to a tree at some distance.
The remaining arrangements of their captors were swiftly and deftly consummated. He, after Rose, was dumped like a bale into a huge bucket, and therein by means of rope and windlass lowered to the bottom of the shaft—a descent of something like a hundred feet.
Marrophat operated the windlass, his first assistant (a boyish body never known to Barcus by any other name than Jimmy) having accompanied Rose down the shaft and waiting there to receive and dispose of Barcus and Alan in turn.
His handling of them was much like the treatment a sincere baggage-smasher accords an exceptionally heavy trunk. Barcus was partly dragged, partly thrown, tumbled, and kicked, some ten feet or so along a tunnel that struck away from the foot of the shaft, then left shoulder to shoulder with Rose, in darkness only emphasized by the feeble flicker of a candle which Jimmy had thrust into the wall of the tunnel near its mouth, while Alan was lowered, brought in, and thrown roughly down across the body of Barcus.
