ng time. "If they loose the dogs there will be no time for
the ship," he added, with a suggestive hunch of his naked shoulders.
"Follow me!"

There was no alarm in his voice and Nathaniel caught the flashing gleam
of white teeth as Neil smiled grimly back at him, running in the lead.
From the man's eyes the master of the _Typhoon_ had sized up his
companion as a fighter. The smile--daring, confident, and yet signaling
their danger--assured him that he was right, and he followed close
behind without question. A dozen rods up the path Neil turned into a
dense thicket of briars and underbrush and for ten minutes they plunged
through the pathless jungle. Now and then Nathaniel saw the three red
stripes of the whipper's lash upon the bare shoulders of the man ahead
and to these every step seemed to add new wounds made by the thorns. As
they came out upon an old roadway the captain stripped off his coat and
Neil thrust himself into it as they ran.

Even in these first minutes of their flight Nathaniel was thrilled by
another thought than that of the peril behind them. Whom had he saved?
Who was this clear-eyed young fellow for whom the girl had so openly
sacrificed herself at the whipping-post, about whom she had thrown her
arms and covered with the protection of her glorious hair? With his joy
at having served her there was mingled a chilling doubt as these
questions formed themselves in his mind. Obadiah's vague suggestions,
the scene in the king's room, the night visits of the girl to the
councilor's cabin--and last of all this incident at the jail flashed
upon him now with another meaning, with a significance that slowly
cooled the enthusiasm in his veins. He was sure that he was near the
solution of the mysterious events in which he had become involved, and
yet this knowledge brought with it something of apprehension, something
which made him anticipate and yet dread the moment when the fugitive
ahead would stop in his flight, and he might ask him those questions
which would at least relieve him of his burden of doubt. They had
traveled a mile through forest unbroken by path or road when Neil halted
on the edge of a little stream that ran into a swamp. Pointing into the
tangled fen with a confident smile he plunged to his waist in the water
and waded slowly through the slough into the gloom of the densest alder.
A few minutes later he turned in to the shore and the soft bog gave
place to firm ground. Before Nathaniel ha