It was Neil, speaking coolly, laughingly.
"How are you, Nat ?" Nathaniel's staring eyes revealed his astonishment.

He could see Neil laughing at him as though it was an unusually humorous joke in which they were playing a part.
"Lord, but this is a funny mess!" he chuckled.

"Here am I, able and willing to talk--and there you are, as dumb as a mummy, and looking for all the world as if you'd seen a ghost! What's the matter?
Aren't you glad we're not going to be shot ?" Nathaniel nodded.
The other's voice became suddenly sober.
"This is worse than the other, Nat.

It's what we call the 'Straight Death.' Unless something turns up between now and to-morrow morning, or a little later, we'll be as dead as though they had filled us with bullets.

Our only hope rests in the fact that I can use my lungs.