“No, sor,” said Dinny, one morning, “the captain thought that as two of ’em had got their doses there ought to be no more killing. Faix, he behaved like a lion when he came up that day. There was Black Mazzard and five-and-twenty more of ’em as had been over-persuaded by him, all shut up with plenty of firearms in the powder magazine. ‘Don’t go nigh ’em – it’s madness,’ says the captain; but he goes into his place and comes out again with a couple of pishtles shtuck in his belt, and his best sword on – the one wid an edge as you could show to your beard and it would all come off at wanst, knowing as it was no use to make a foight of it again’ such a blade, as a strong beard will against a bad rashier. And then he sings out: ‘Now, my lads, who’s for me?’”

“And they all rushed to his aid!” said Humphrey.

“Well, you see, sor,” said Dinny, “it wasn’t quite a rush. Lads don’t go rushing into a powdher-magazine when there’s an ugly black divil aside as swears if annybody comes anigh, he’ll blow the whole place up into smithereens.”

“They never let him go alone?” cried Humphrey.

“Well, no, sor,” said Dinny; “it wasn’t exackly alone, bekase old Bart run up, and then two more walked up, and another one wint up to him in a slow crawl that made me want to take him by the scruff o’ the neck and the sate of his breeches, and pitch him down into that great hole yander, where that blagguard was drowned. ‘Oh, ye cowardly cur!’ I says to him, quite red-hot like, sor – ‘Oh, ye cowardly cur! I says, you as was always boasting and bragging about and playing at Hector an’ Archillus, and bouncing as if ye were a big ancient foighting man, and ye goo crawling up to yer captain that way!’ And then he whispers to me confidential-like, he does: ‘Och, Dinny, owld lad!’ he says, ‘it isn’t the foighting I mind; but I’m thinking of my poor mother,’ he says. ‘Ah, get out, ye coward!’ I says; ‘ye’re thinking of yerself.’ ‘Divil a bit!’ he says; ‘it’s the powdher I’m thinking of. I’d foight anny man, or anny two men in the camp; but I can’t fale to care about an encounter wid tin tons o’ divil’s dust!’ Oh, I did give it him, sor!”

“You had better have gone yourself than stood preaching to another,” said Humphrey, indignantly.

“That’s jist what I said to meself, sor,” cried Dinny; “but the baste wouldn’t listen. ‘Och!’ he says, ‘what would my mother’s falings be if she was to hear that instead of dying properly of a broken head she heard that I was blown all into smithereens, widout a dacent-sized pace left for the praste to say a blessing over?’ ‘Ah, Dinny Kelly!’ I says, ‘that’s a mane dirthy excuse, because ye’re afraid; for the divil a bit wid your mother care what became of such an ill-looking, black buccaneer of a blagguard as ye are!’”

“Why, you’re talking about yourself!” cried Humphrey.

“For sartin, sir. Sure, there isn’t another boy in the whole crew that I dare to spake to in such an onrespectful way.”

“Why, Dinny, man, you did go?”

“Yes, sor, I wint, but in a way that I’m quite ashamed of. I didn’t think I was such a coward. But there! I niver turned back from a shtick in me loife, and I faced the powdher afther all; but oh, it’s ashamed of meself intirely I am! A Kelly wouldn’t have felt like that if it hadn’t been for the climate. It’s the hot weather takes it out of ye, sor. Why I felt over that job as a man couldn’t fale in me own counthry.”

“Well, go on.”

“That’s what I did, sor. I stuck close to the captain’s tail as he wint sthraight up to the door – ye know the door, sor, where the owld gintleman’s sitting over the porch, looking down at ye wid a plisant smile of his own.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Go on.”

“Well, sor, I did go on; and there stood Black Mazzard wid the two biggest pishtols we have on the primises, wan in each hand and the other shtuck in his belt. ‘Kim another shtep,’ he says, ‘and I’ll blow the place about your heads!’ Och, and I looked up thin to ask a blessing on meself before I wint up in such a hurry that I hadn’t time to confess; and bedad there was the owld gintleman expanding his mouth into the widest grin I iver saw in me life!”

“And the Commodore, what did he do?” cried Humphrey, impatiently.

“What did he do?”

“Yes – draw his men off?”

“Faix, he drew Black Mazzard’s blood off, for he wint shtraight at him, knocking one pishtol up in the air wid his hand as he did so. I niver saw annything so nate in me life, sor. I told ye he’d got his best sword on – the sharp one.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Well, sor, he seemed just to lift it up and howld it forninst him, as I’m howlding this knife – so; and it wint right through Black Mazzard; just bechuckst his shoulder and his neck; and as he pulls it out he takes him by the collar and drags him down upon his knees.

“‘Come out, ye mad-brained idiots!’ he shouts at the lads inside – ‘come out, or I’ll fire the powdher meself!’

“Bedad, sor, ye might have heard a pin dhrop if there’d bin wan there, but there wasn’t; and we heard Black Mazzard’s pishtol dhrop instead – the big one being on the pavemint, where it went off bang and shot a corner off a big shtone. But nobody came from inside the magazine, and the owld gintleman grinned more and more, and seemed to rowl his oies; and I belave he wanted to hear the owld place go up. And there you could hear thim inside buzzing about like my mother’s bees in the sthraw hive, when ye give it a larrup on the top wid a shtick.”

Dinny gave his head a nod, and went on. “That roused up the Captain, and he roars out – ‘Here, Dinny – Dick – Bart,’ he says, ‘go in and fetch out these idiots.’ And I shpat in me fist, and ran in wid the other two. ‘Now, Dinny, my lad,’ I says to meself, ‘if ye’re blown up it’ll be bad for ye, but ye’ll be blown up towards heaven, and that’s a dale better than being blown down.’ And avore I knew where I was, I was right in among the lads, about foive-and-twenty of them; and then talk about a foight, sor! Ah, musha, it was awful!”

“Did they make such a desperate defence!”

“Deshperate, sor! Oh, that don’t describe it! Bedad, I nivver saw anything like it in me loife!”

“Were there many killed? Were you wounded!”

“Killed! Wounded! Did ye iver see a flock o’ sheep when a big dog goes at ’em, sor?”

“Often, in Devon.”

“Ah, then it’s the same as it would be in Oireland. Bedad, sor, the name of the captain, and seeing Black Mazzard tuk, was enough. They all walked out and pitched their swords and pishtols down, in a hape before the shkipper and then stands in a row like sodgers; sure and it’s meself that had some of the drilling of them.

“‘Come here, Bart,’ says the shkipper then; and as Bart goes up, the captain gives Black Mazzard a shove like and throws him down. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘put your foot on this dog’s throat.’ Bart had it there before ye knew where ye were, and thin if the skipper didn’t go right up to the row of min and walks slowly along ’em, looking ’em wan by wan in the face wid his dark oi, sor. And he made ’em turn white and shiver, he did, sor, till he’d looked ’em all down, and then he shteps out, little shtiff fellow as he is, and he says:

“‘You fools, to be led away by a thing like that! How shall I punish ’em, Dinny?’ he says, turning to me.

“‘Sure, captain,’ I says, ‘they are all shtanding nate and handy, and if ye give me word, I’ll shtand at wan ind and send a bullet through the lot, and there’ll be no waste.’

“‘Pah!’ he says, ‘I don’t make war on the lads who’ve fought by my side. Go back to your quarthers,’ he says, ‘and if ye turn again me once more I’ll give ye such a punishment as ye disarve. You shall have your Captain Mazzard.’

“‘D’ye hear that, ye divils?’ I says, for I couldn’t stop meself, sor; and they give three cheers for the captain and wint off to quarthers; and that was all.”

“But Mazzard – what of him!”

“Oh, he’s putt away in as nice and plisant a place as a gintleman could wish to have, sor. It’s cool, and undherground, and the only way to it is down through a hole in a stone like Father O’Grady’s well, and Bart fades him wid food at the ind of a long shtick. He’s safe enough now. But sure and the best thing for everyone would be for him to doi by accident through Bart forgetting to take him his mate.”

“Starve him to death?” cried Humphrey.

“Faix, no, not a bit of it, sor. He’s a bad one anny way, and if he died like a sparrow in a cage, sure it would be a blessing for all of us.”

“And the widow Greenheys, Dinny!”

“Whisht! be aisy, sor, wid a lady’s name.”

“Dinny,” cried Humphrey sternly, “how long are you going to play fast and loose with me!”

“‘An’ is it me ye mane?’ Sure I couldn’t do it, sor.”

“Dinny, now is the time to escape, now that Mistress Greenheys is safe from the persecution of that scoundrel.”

“Oh, whisht, sor! whisht! Sure and I’ve grown shtrong again, and ye want to timpt me from the ways of vartue.”

“Nonsense, man! Your plan – the explosion!”

“Oh, faix! It was only me fun. I couldn’t do such a thing.”

“Do you want that man to escape or be set free, and lay claim again to that poor little woman?”

“Oh, the poor little crathur! no.”

“Then help me to escape.”

“Sure and ye’re good friends wid the shkipper and don’t want to go, sor.”

“I must and will escape, Dinny, and you shall help me for Mistress Greenheys’ sake.”

“Ah, and it’s touching me on me soft place ye are,” said Dinny pitifully.

“For her sake, I tell you, and you shall be happy with her at home.”

“Sure an’ I haven’t got an ‘at home,’” said Dinny.

“Then, as I promised you, I’ll make you one. Come, save her from that scoundrel.”

“Faix, an’ he is a blagguard anny way.”

“Who is?” said a deep voice.

“Yerself for wan,” said Dinny. “Sure, and Black Mazzard another; and I’m telling the captain here that he needn’t grumble and call himself a prishner, for he’s rowling in comfort; while as to Black Mazzard, ah, he should see his cell!”

Bart scowled and stopped till Dinny had finished and gone, leaving the prisoner alone with his thoughts, which were of liberty.

Chapter Thirty One
The Plan of Escape

Humphrey Armstrong sat gazing through the opening of his prison at the dark forest vistas and dreamed of England and its verdant fields and gold-cupped meadows.

The whole business connected with the Dells came back to him, and with it the figure of the handsome rustic fisher-girl standing as it were vividly before him, and with her his cousin, the cause of all the suffering.

“How strange it is,” he thought again, “that I should be brought into contact with her brother like this! Poor fellow! more sinned against than sinning; and as for her – ”

“Poor girl!”

There was a slight sound as of someone breathing hard, and the buccaneer stood before him.

He smiled gravely, and held out his hand; but Humphrey did not take it, and they remained gazing at each other for some few minutes in silence.

“Have you thought better of my proposals, Captain Armstrong?” said the buccaneer at last. “Are we to be friends?”

“It is impossible, sir,” replied Humphrey, quietly. “After what has passed I grieve to have to reject your advances; but you must see that it can never be.”

“I can wait,” said the buccaneer, patiently. “The time will come.”

Humphrey shook his head.

“Is there anything you want?”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, sharply. “Liberty.”

“Take it. It is in my hand.”

“Liberty chained to you, sir! No. There, place me under no further obligations, sir. I will not fight against you; but pray understand that what you ask can never be.”

“I can wait,” said the buccaneer again, quietly, as he let his eyes rest for a few moments upon his prisoner’s face, and then left the room.

Humphrey sprang up impatiently, and was about to pace the chamber like a wild beast in a cage when he heard voices in the corridor, and directly after Dinny entered. The man looked troubled and stood listening, then he stole to the curtain and went down the corridor, to stay away for quite a quarter of an hour before he returned.

“He’s gone, sor, safe enough. Faix, captain, dear, I fale as if I ought to be hung.”

“Hung, Dinny?”

“Yis, sor, for threachery to as good a friend as I iver had.”

“What do you mean, Dinny?” cried Humphrey, eagerly.

“Mane, sor! Why, that all the grate min in the world, from Caesar down to Pater Donovan, have had their wake side. I’ve got mine, and I’m a fallen man.”

“Speak out plainly,” cried Humphrey, flushing.

“That’s just what I’m doing, sor,” said Dinny, with a soft smile. “It’s Nature, sor. She was bad enough, and thin you helped her. Oh, there’s no foighting agen it! It used to be so in Oireland. She says to the little birds in the spring – choose your partners, darlin’s, she says, and they chose ’em; and she said the same to human man, and he chooses his.”

“Oh, Dinny, if you hadn’t quite such a long tongue!” cried Humphrey.

“Faix, it’s a regular sarpint, sor, for length, and just as desaving; but as I was saying, what Nature says in owld Oireland in the spring she says out here in this baste of a counthry where there’s nayther spring, summer, autumn, nor winther – nothing but a sort of moshposh of sunshine and howling thunderstorms.”

“And – ”

“Yis, sor, that’s I’m a fallen man.”

“And will you really help me to escape!”

“Whisht, sor! What are ye thinking about? Spaking aloud in a counthry where the parrots can talk like Christians and the threes is full of ugly little chaps, who sit and watch ye and say nothing, but howld toight wid their tails, and thin go and whishper their saycrets to one another, and look as knowing as Barny Higgins’s pig.”

“Dinny, will you speak sensibly?”

“Sinsibly! Why, what d’ye call this? Ar’n’t I tellin’ ye that it’s been too much for me wid Black Mazzard shut up in his cage and the purty widow free to do as she plases; and sure and she plases me, sor, and I’m a fallen man.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Yis, sor, if ye’ll go down on your bended knees and take an oath.”

“Oath! What oath?”

“Niver to bethray or take part in annything agen Commodore Junk, the thruest, bravest boy that iver stepped.”

“You are right, Dinny. He is a brave man, and I swear that I will not betray or attack him, come what may. Get me my liberty and the liberty of my men, and I’ll be content. Stop! I cannot go so far as that; there are my men. I swear that I will not attack your captain without giving him due notice, that he may escape; but this nest of hornets must be burned out, and my men freed.”

“Ah, well, we won’t haggle about thrifles, sor. Swear this, sor: – Ye’ll behave to the captain like a gintleman.”

“I’ll swear I will.”

“Bedad, then, I’m wid ye; and there’s one more favour I’ll be asking ye, sor.”

“What is it!”

“Whin we get safe home ye’ll come and give Misthress Greenheys away.”

“Yes, yes, Dinny. And now, tell me, what will you do?”

“Sure an’ there’s no betther way than I said before. I’ll have an oi on a boat, and see that there’s some wather and bishkits and a gun in her; and thin, sor, I’ll set light to the magazine, for it’ll be a rale plisure to blow up that owld gintleman as is always leering and grinning at me as much as to say, ‘Och, Dinny, ye divil, I know all about the widdy, and first time ye go to see her I’ll tell Black Mazzard, and then, ’ware, hawk!’”

“But when shall you do this?”

“First toime it seems aisy, sor.”

“In the night?”

“Av coorse, sor.”

“And how shall I know?”

“Hark at that, now! Faix, ar’n’t I telling ye, sor, that I’ll blow up the magazine! Sure an’ ye don’t pay so much attention to it when ye go to shleep that ye won’t hear that?”

“Of course I shall hear it,” said Humphrey, excitedly.

“Thin, that’s the signal, sor; and when it goes fizz, lie riddy and wait till I kim to ye, and thin good bye to the rover’s loife, and Black Mazzard will see the darlin’ no more. Whisht!”

Chapter Thirty Two
The Explosion

A fortnight passed, during which the buccaneer visited his prisoner twice, as if to give him an opportunity to speak, but each time in company with Bart.

Both were very quiet and stern, and but few words were said. Everything was done to make the prisoner’s condition more endurable, but the attentions now were irksome; and though Humphrey Armstrong lay listening for footsteps with the greatest anxiety, those which came down the corridor were not those he wished to hear.

At last, in the continuous absence of Dinny, he began to dread that the last conversation had been heard, and after fighting down the desire for a fortnight, he determined to risk exciting suspicion and ask Bart what had become of the Irishman.

Bart entered the place soon after he had come to the determination, bringing an Indian basket of fruit – the pleasant little grapes that grew wild in the sunny parts, and the succulent banana. These he placed upon the stone table in company with a bunch of flowers, where they looked like some offering made to the idol upon whose altar they had been placed.

Humphrey hesitated with the words upon his lips, and checked himself. If Dinny had been overheard and were imprisoned or watched, what good would he do? Better wait and bear the suspense.

“Your gift?” he said, aloud, taking up the flowers and smelling them, for the soft delicate blooms of the forest orchids suggested a room in Saint James’s Square and a daintily-dressed lady who was bemoaning his absence.

“Mine? No. The captain picked them himself,” said Bart, bitterly.

Humphrey laid them down and took up one of the long, yellow-skinned fruits, Bart watching his action, regarding the fruit with jealous eyes.

Humphrey turned sharply round to hide his face from his jailer, for he had changed colour. A spasm shot through him, and for the moment he felt as if he must betray himself, for as he turned over the banana in his fingers, they touched a roughening of the under part, and the next instant he saw that the fruit he held had been partly cut away with the point of a knife, so that a figure had been carved in the soft rind, and this could only have been the work of one hand, and intended as a signal to him that he was not forgotten. For the figure cut in the rind was that of a shamrock – a trefoil with its stalk.

He hastily tore off the rind in tiny strips and ate the fruit, but the soft, creamy pulp seemed like ashes, and his throat was dry, as he completely destroyed all trace of the cutting on the rind and threw it aside.

Noting that Bart was watching him narrowly, he hurriedly picked up one of the little bunches of grapes and began eating them as if suffering from thirst. Then forcing himself to appear calm he lay down upon the couch till Bart had finished his customary attentions and gone.

Night at last – a moonless night – that would have been dusk on the open shore, but there in the forest beneath the interlacing trees it was absolutely black; and after watching at his window for hours, with every sense upon the strain, he reluctantly came to the conclusion that no attempt would be made, Dinny either not being prepared – though his signal seemed to be to indicate readiness for the night though suitable for concealment, being too obscure for his purpose.

“One of them might have managed to come and give me a word,” he said, fretfully, as at last, weary of watching the scintillations of the fireflies in a distant opening, he threw himself upon his couch to try and sleep, feeling that he would be wakeful all night, when all at once, just as he felt most troubled, his eyes closed, and he was deep in a dreamless sleep, lost to everything but the terrific roar which suddenly burst forth, following a vivid flash as of lightning, and as, confused and half-stunned, Humphrey started up, all idea of the proposed escape seemed to have passed away, and he sat watching for the next flash, listening for the next peal, thinking that this was a most terrific storm.

No flash – no peal – but a confused buzz of voices and the distant pattering of feet, while a dense, dank odour of exploded gunpowder penetrated the forest, and entered the window close to which the prisoner sat.

“Dinny – the escape!” he cried, excitedly, as he sprang from his bed, for now a flash did come with almost blinding force; but it was a mental flash, which left him quivering with excitement, as he sprang to the curtained corridor and listened there.

A step! – Dinny’s! Yes, he knew it well! It was coming along the great stone passage!

“Quick! we shall easily get away, for they’ll all crowd about the captain, asking him what to do.”

Dinny led on rapidly till they reached the turning in the direction of the old temple which contained the cenote. Here they struck off to the left, and found, as they cleared the narrow forest path, that the odour of the exploded gunpowder was almost overpowering.

Not a hundred yards away voices were heard speaking rapidly, and directly after they were silent, and the captain’s words rang out plainly as he gave orders to his people, though their import was not clear from the distance where the fugitives crept along by the edge of the ruins.

“Are you sure you are right?” whispered Humphrey.

“Roight, sor; I niver was more so. Whisht! Are ye there?”

“Yes, yes,” came from down by the side of a great wall. “Oh, Dinny, I was afraid you were killed!”

“Kilt! Nay, my darling, there’s a dale o’ loife in me yet. Tak’ howlt o’ me hand, one on each side, and walk quick and shteady, and I’ll have ye down by the say shore, where the boat is waiting, before ye know where ye are.”

They started off at a sharp walk, pausing at times to listen to the jargon of excited voices behind, but rapidly advancing, on the whole, toward their goal.

“Do – do you think we can escape?” said the woman, panting with fear.

“An’ is it eshcape, whin the boat’s waiting, and everything riddy?” said Dinny scornfully. “Dyer hear her, sor? What a woman it is!”

The woman sighed as if not hopeful, and Dinny added an encouraging word:

“Sure an’ the captain says he’ll tak’ care of us, darlin’, and avore long we’ll be sailing away over the salt say. It’s a white sail I’ve got in the boat, and – ”

“Hist, Dinny, you’re talking too loudly, my man!” whispered Humphrey.

“Bedad and I am, sor. It’s that owld sarpint of a tongue o’ mine. Bad luck to it for being given me wrong. Faix and it belonged to some woman by rights.”

They pressed on, and at the end of what seemed to be an interminably long time, Humphrey whispered:

“Are we near the sea?”

“Close to it now, sor. If it was Oireland ye’d hear the bating of the waves upon the shore; but they’re too hot and wake in this counthry to do more than give a bit of a lap on the sands.”

Another weary length of time passed, and still the sea-shore was not reached, but they were evidently near now, for the dull murmur of the billows in the sheltered gulf was plainly to be heard; and Mistress Greenheys, who, in spite of her bravery and decision, had begun to utter a low hysterical sob from time to time and hang more heavily upon her companions’ arms, took courage at the thought of the safety the sea offered, and pressed sturdily forward for another few hundred yards and then stopped short.

“What is it, darlin’?” whispered Dinny.

“Voices!” she replied softly.

“Yes; our own,” said Dinny. “There can’t be anny others here.”

“Hist!” ejaculated Humphrey. “Is there any other way down to the beach?”

“Divil a bit, sor, that we could foind, and the boat’s yander, close inshore.”

He took a step or two in advance, and listened.

“I am sure I heard whispering,” said Humphrey; but all was still now, and feeling satisfied at last that it was the murmur of the waves, they crept on in utter silence, and were about to leave the shelter of the path by which they had come and make for the open sand when Dinny checked his companions, and they all stood listening, for a voice that was familiar said:

“The skipper’s full of fancies. He hasn’t been right since this captain was made prisoner, and he has been worse since the other prisoners escaped.”

“Other prisoners! What prisoners?” thought Humphrey.

“You hold your tongue!” growled the familiar voice of Bart. “Do you want to scare them off?”

“Scare whom off?”

“Those who try to escape. Silence!”

Mistress Greenheys reeled up against Humphrey and would have fallen but for his strong arm which encircled her, lifted her from the ground and held her firmly as he stepped softly back, followed by Dinny, who did not speak till they had reached the shelter of some trees.

“Look at that, now!” he whispered out of the black darkness. “Have ye got the darling safe?”

“Yes, safe enough; but what does this mean?”

“Mane, sor? Sure and it’s Bart yander wid two min.”

“Take us down to the sea by some other path.”

“Shure an’ don’t I tell ye there is no other path, sor. It’s the only way. Murther, look at that!”

For at that moment a light flashed out and shimmered on the sea, sank, rose, and became brilliant, shining forth so that they could see that the three men down upon the shore had lit a pile of some inflammable material, beyond which, floating easily upon the surface of the sea and apparently close inshore, was a boat – the boat that was to bear them safely away.

They were sheltered by the trees, and besides, too far off to be seen by the men, whose acts, however, were plain enough to them, as one of them was seen to wade out to the boat, get hold of her mooring rope, and drag her ashore.

“The murtherin’ villains!” muttered Dinny. “They’re takkin’ out the shtores. Look at that now! There’s the barl o’ wather and the bishkit, and now there’s the sail. What’ll I do intoirely? My heart’s bruk wid ’em.”

“Hush, my lad! You’ll be heard,” whispered Humphrey. “Is there no other boat we can get?”

“Divil a wan, sor, and if we shtay here we shall be tuk. What’ll we do now?”

“Make a bold fight for it, and take them by surprise.”

“Wid a woman as wan of our min, sor! Sure an’ it would be a mad thrick. Wan of us would be sure to go down, you or me, even if we bate the divils. Look at ’em, the fire’s going down, and they’re coming back!”

Humphrey gave an angry stamp, for in her agony of dread Mistress Greenheys gave herself a wrest from his arm, and hurried back.

“What’s that?” whispered Dinny.

“Mistress Greenheys.”

“What? gone back, sor? Whisht! darlin’. Stop!”

If the woman heard his words they only added to her alarm, for she hurried on, apparently as well acquainted with the way back as Dinny, who immediately started in pursuit.

“What are you going to do?” whispered Humphrey.

“Do, sor! Go afther her.”

“No, no; we must escape now we’ve got so far.”

“Shure an’ we will, sor; but to go forward’s to go into prishn for you and to be dancing on nothing for me. Come on, sor. Let’s catch up to me poor freckened darlin’, and then tak’ to the woods.”

They hurried back in pursuit of their companion, but fear had made her fleet of foot, and in spite of their efforts they did not overtake her.

“She’ll have gone back to her quarthers,” said Dinny dismally. “Shall we go back to ours?”

“No!” cried Humphrey imperiously. “Good heavens, man! our absence has been found out before now. Let’s take to the woods or hide in one of the ruins till we can get away.”

“Shure an’ ye’re roight, sor. They’ve been afther ye, av coorse, and I’ve been missed and can’t show meself now widout being thrated as a thraitor. Will ye thrust to me, and I’ll find a place!”

“Trust you? yes,” said Humphrey; “but what do you propose doing?”

“Doing, sor? Hoiding till we can find a chansh of getting away.”

“Where will you hide?”

“Ye said ye’d thrust me, sor,” whispered Dinny. “Come on.”