Explore "The Vanished Messenger" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mr. John P. Dunster, lying flat upon his little bed, watched with dilated eyes the disappearance of the ladder. Then he laughed. It was a queer sound -- broken, spasmodic, devoid of any of the ordinary elements of humor -- and yet it was a laugh. Mr. Fentolin turned his head towards his prisoner and nodded thoughtfully.
"What a constitution, my friend! " he exclaimed, without any trace of disturbance in his voice. "And what a sense of humour! Strange that a trifling circumstance like this should affect it. Meekins, burn some more of the powder. The atmosphere down here may be salubrious, but I am unaccustomed to it."