hange his position during
their presence. He might thus cause sufficient sound to attract
attention. He would be in better case further away. Therefore, using
his stick and feeling the route with his hand, he made his way down
the steps to a landing, turned to the right, descended more steps, and
found himself in a dark cellar. He had no sooner reached the last step
than a burst of hearty greetings from above informed him the officers
were in the parlor.

This part of the cellar being damp, he set out in search of a more
comfortable spot wherein to bestow himself the necessary while.
Groping his way, and travelling with great labor, he at last came into
a kind of corridor formed between two rolls of piled-up barrels. He
proceeded along this passage until it was blocked by a barrel on the
ground. On this he sat down, deciding it as good a staying-place as he
might find. Leaning back, he discovered with his head what seemed to
be a thick wooden partition close to the barrel. Changing his
position, he bumped his head against an iron something that lay
horizontally against the partition, and so violent was this collision
that the iron something was moved from its place, a fact which he
noted on the instant but immediately forgot in the sharpness of his
pain.

Having at last made himself comfortable, he sat waiting in the
darkness, thinking to let some time pass before returning to the
closet stairway. An hour or more had gone by, when he heard a door
open, which he knew must be at the head of some other stairway to the
cellar, and a jocund voice cry: "Damme, we'll be our own tapsters!
Give me the candle, Mr. Williams, and if my nose doesn't pull me to
the barrel in one minute, may it never whiff spirits again!" A moment
later, quick footfalls sounded on the stairs, then candle-light
disturbed the blackness, and Williams was heard saying, "This way,
gentlemen, if you insist. The barrel is on the ground, straight
ahead." Whereupon Peyton saw two merry young Englishmen enter the very
passage at whose end he sat, one bearing the candle, both followed by
the steward, who carried a spigot and a huge jug.

Harry instantly divined the cause of this intrusion. The servants were
busy preparing refreshments for the officers, and, in a spirit of
gaiety, these two had volunteered to help Williams fetch the liquor
which he, not knowing Harry's whereabouts, was about to draw from the
barrel on which Harry sat.

It was not Elizabeth