ll was black as night. Suddenly a familiar voice,
sounding a long way off, reached his ear.

"What can it be?" he cried, withdrawing his head. "I can hear that
brute Stackanoff distinctly. Hush! I will get higher up into the
chimney. Pierre, if you hear footsteps warn me in good time." Phil
crawled beneath the overhanging lip of the grate, and stood up in the
chimney. Then, finding a rest for his feet, he gradually ascended.
Suddenly his head struck against some brickwork, and by stretching out
his hands he found that the chimney bent upward at an easy slope.
Surmounting the corner he crept up with some difficulty. The voice now
sounded much nearer, so he lay still and listened.

"Know, then, that I have set hands on your comrades, beggarly
Englishman!" he heard Stackanoff cry in a cruel voice. "They have been
taken as spies, and I hope will be shot. I promise you that you shall
see the fun."

"Wretch!" a weak voice replied, in tones which sounded like Lieutenant
McNeil's, "have you not already ill-treated me sufficiently, and must
you now persecute my poor countrymen? Were it not for this wound, which
lames me, I would spring upon you and crush the life from your miserable
carcass. Leave me, you coward!"

A derisive laugh was the only answer, and, having waited in vain to hear
more, Phil slipped back into the cell, looking more like a sweep than a
British officer. He was greatly excited, and that, together with the
fact that he was partially choked by soot, made it difficult to answer
Tony's eager question.

"What luck!" he cried at last. "This cell must communicate in some way
with the next one, and in that is Lieutenant McNeil. Listen, and I will
tell you what happened."

Sitting on his blankets he rapidly communicated the words he had
overheard.

"I'm going up there again," he said, when some ten minutes had elapsed.
"If this chimney allows us to reach the other cell, it will allow us,
perhaps, to escape. Evidently our pleasant Stackanoff knows nothing
about it. At any rate, if I can get into McNeil's prison, and can find
some way out for both of us, he comes with me. Poor chap! See how long
he has been shut up."

"What, another!" exclaimed Tony aghast. "Ain't it bad enough to have
this here Froggy? ain't that hard enough? And now yer wants to take on
another pal?"

Phil glared at him.

"Very well," he said curtly, "we'll not make the attempt. I am sorry,
for I did not know you we