-hide it," said Stuart excitedly. "Bury it!"

"Contrary to the stipulations and our agreement," returned Demere.

Stuart evidently struggled with himself. "If these fiends," he
exclaimed,--the triumph of Oconostota had gone very hard with
him,--"were like any other enemy we could afford to run the chance. But
have we the right to submit the commandant of Fort Prince George and his
garrison--to say nothing of ourselves and our garrison, hampered as we
are with women and children, taking refuge with him,--to the risk of
siege and massacre, fire and torture, compassed by materials practically
furnished by us,--on a delicate question of military ethics?"

"If we do not keep our word, how can we expect Oconostota to keep his
word?" asked Demere.

"But do we really expect it? Have we any guarantee?"

Once more Stuart hesitated, then suddenly decided. "But if you have
scruples"--he broke off with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should leave
Oconostota enough powder to amuse him with the guns for a while, but
not enough to undertake a siege. The government will surely occupy this
place again. I expect to find the powder here when I come back to Fort
Loudon."

His words were prophetic, although neither knew it. He cast a hasty
glance at Demere, who again objected, and Stuart went out of the door
saying nothing further, the draught flickering, then extinguishing, the
flame of the candle in his hand.

It was very dark about midnight when the whole place lay locked in
slumber. The sentries, watchful as ever in the block-house towers and at
the chained and barred gates, noted now and again shadowy figures about
the region of the southeast bastion,--the old exhausted smoke-house had
been in that locality,--and thence suppressed voices sounded
occasionally in low-toned, earnest talk. No light showed save in
glimpses for a while through the crevices in the walls of the building
itself, and once or twice when the door opened and was suddenly shut.
There Corporal O'Flynn and three soldiers and Captain Stuart himself,
armed with mattocks, dug a deep trench in the tough red clay, carefully
drawing to one side the dead ashes and cinders left by the fires of his
earnest preparations against the siege. Then the lights were
extinguished, and from the great traverse, in which was the powder
magazine, they brought ten heavy bags of powder, and laid them in the
trench, covering them over with the utmost caution, lest a mattock
strike a spark