n biped, in the
lead. Strung out in single file--no other formation being possible--as
they wound their way up the zig-zag with the moonlight here and there,
giving back the glint of their armour, it was as some great serpent--a
monster of the antediluvian ages--crawling towards its prey. Silently
as serpent too; not a word spoken, nor exclamation uttered along their
line. For, although it might be another hour before they could reach
their destination, less than a second would suffice for their voices to
get there, even though but muttered.

One spot their guide passed with something like a shudder. It was where
he had appropriated the dagger taken from a dead body. His shuddering
was not due to that, but to fear from a far different cause. The body
was no longer there. Those who dwelt above must have been down and
borne it away. They would now be on the alert, and at any moment he
might hear the cracking of carbines--a volley; perhaps feel the avenging
bullet. What if they should roll rocks down and crush him and the party
behind? In any case there could be no surprisal now; and he would
gladly have seen those he was guiding give up the thought of it and turn
back. Santander was himself irresolute, and would willingly have done
so. But Ramirez, a man of more mettle, at the point of his sword
commanded the hunchback to keep on, and the cowardly colonel dare not
revoke the order without eternally disgracing himself.

They had no danger to encounter, though they knew not that. Neither
vidette nor sentinel was stationed there now; and, without challenge or
obstruction, they reached the platform on which the building stood, the
soldiers taking to right and left till they swarmed around it as bees.
But they found no honey inside their hive.

There was a summons to surrender, which received no response. Repeated
louder, and a carbine fired, the result was the same. Silence inside,
there could be no one within.

Nor was there. When the Hussar colonel, with a dozen of his men, at
length screwed up courage to make a burst into the doorway, and on to
the Refectory, they saw but the evidence of late occupancy in the
fragments of a supper, with some dozens of wine bottles "down among the
dead men," empty as the building itself.

Disappointed as were the soldiers at finding them so, but still more
their commanding officer at his hated enemies having again got away from
him. His soul was brimful of chagrin, nor