d for use in siege or in military occupation.
Harry waited here a while that seemed half a day, then returned
through the passage to the door, intending to return to the
cellar. He listened at the door, found all quiet beyond, and made
to push open the door. It would not move. From the feel of the
resistance, he perceived that the bolt had been pushed home again--as
indeed it had, by the steward, who had noticed it while tapping the
barrel, and had imputed its being drawn to some former carelessness
of his own.

Peyton, finding himself thus barred into the subterranean regions, was
in a quandary. Any alarm he might attempt, by shouting or pounding,
might not be heard, or, if heard, might reach some tarrying British.
In due time, Elizabeth would doubtless have him looked for in the
closet and then in the cellar, but, on his not being found there,
would suppose he had left the cellar by one of the other stairways.
Thus he could little hope to be sought for in his prison. Williams
might at any time have occasion to visit the secret storeroom, but, on
the other hand, he might not have such occasion for weeks. Harry
groped back to the cave, and sought some way of escape by the well,
but found none.

He then examined the cave more closely, and came finally on another
passage than that by which he had entered. He followed this for what
seemed an interminable length. At last, it closed up in front of him.
He tested the barrier of raw earth with his hands, felt a great round
stone projecting therefrom, pushed this stone in vain, then clasped it
with both arms and pulled. It gave, and presently fell to the ground
at his feet, leaving an aperture two feet across, which let in light.
He crawled the short length of this, and breathed the open air in a
small thicket on the sloping bank of the Hudson.[8] He crept to the
thicket's edge, and saw, in the sunset light, the river before him; on
the river, a British war-vessel; on the vessel, some naval officers,
one of whom was looking, with languid preoccupation, straight at the
thicket from which Harry gazed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CONFESSION.

"What d'ye spy, Tom?" called out another officer on the deck, to the
one whose attitude most interested Harry.

"I thought I made out some kind of craft steering through the bushes
yonder," was the answer.

"I see nothing."

"Neither do I, now. 'Twasn't human craft, anyhow, so it doesn't
signify," and the officers looked elsewhere.