ds--hear them now above us!"

"But what is that other sound?" I asked, and together we moved towards
it.

Three enormous tuns stood in the chamber, and we halted by the base of
the farthest, where, with a spilt pail beside him, lay a British
sergeant of the 36th Regiment tranquilly snoring! That and no other was
the sound, and a blesseder I never heard. I could have kicked the
fellow awake for the mere pleasure of shaking hands with him. My guide
moved on.

"But we are not going to leave him here!"

"Oh, as for that, his sleep is good for hours to come. If you choose,
we can pick him up on our return."

So we left him, and now I went forward with a heart strangely comforted,
although on leaving the great cellar I knew myself hopelessly lost.
Hitherto I might have turned, and, fortune aiding, have found daylight:
but beyond the cellar the galleries ramified by the score, and we walked
so rapidly and chose between them with such apparent lack of method that
I lost count. My one consolation was the memory of a burly figure in
scarlet supine beneath a wine-tun.

I was thinking of him when, at the end of a passage to me
indistinguishable from any of the dozen or so we had already followed,
my guide put out a hand, and, drawing aside a goatskin curtain, revealed
a small chamber with a lamp hanging from the roof, and under the lamp a
bed of straw, and upon the bed an emaciated man, propped and holding a
book.

His eyes were on the entrance; for he had heard our footsteps.
And almost we broke into one cry of joy. It was indeed my kinsman,
Captain McNeill!

II.

CAPTAIN MCNEILL'S ADVENTURES.

"But how on earth came you here?" was the unspoken question in the eyes
of both of us; and, each reading the reflection of his own, we both
broke out together into a laugh--though my kinsman's was all but
inaudible--and after it he lay back on his pillow (an old knapsack) and
panted.

"My story must needs be the shorter," said I; "so let us have it over
and get it out of the way. I come from watching Caffarelli in the
north, and for the last four days have been taking a holiday and
twiddling my fingers in camp here, just across the Zapardiel.
Happening this afternoon to stroll to this amazing rock, I fell in with
the reverend father here, and most incautiously told him my name: since
which he has been leading me a dance which may or may not have turned my
hair grey."

"The reverend father?" echoed Captain Alan