get a chance. What now? I am trussed; are they going to
roast me?"

For just then he felt a rope was passed round him, and a slip-knot drawn
tight under his arms. Then there was a sudden snatch, and he was raised
upon his feet, steadied for a moment by a pair of hands, the rope
tightened more and more, and he felt himself being drawn up, rising
through the air, and slowly turning round, one elbow rasping gently
against the rock from time to time.

"Well, I'm learning some of their secrets," thought Hilary, "even if
they are keeping me in the dark. This is either the way up to their
place, or else it's the way they get up their cargoes."

"Yes, cargoes only," he said directly, as he heard indistinctly a gruff
voice at his elbow, some one being evidently climbing up at his side.
"I hope they won't drop me."

In another minute he was dragged sidewise and lowered on to the rock, a
change he gladly welcomed, for the rope had hurt him intolerably, and
seemed to compress his chest so that he could hardly breathe.

"Well, this is pleasant," he thought, as he bit his lip with vexation.
"The lads will have a good hunt for me, find nothing, and then go back
and tell Lipscombe. He will lie on and off for an hour or two, and then
go and report that I have deserted or gone off for a game, or some other
pleasant thing. Oh, hang it all! this won't do. I must escape somehow.
I wish they'd take off this cloak."

That seemed to be about the last thing his captors were disposed to do,
for after he had been lying there in a most painfully uncomfortable
position for quite an hour, every effort to obtain relief being met with
a kick, save one, when he felt the cold ring of a pistol muzzle pressed
against his neck under the cloak, he was lifted by the head and heels,
some one else put an arm round him, and he was carried over some rugged
ground, lifted up higher, and then his heart seemed to stand still, for
he felt that he was going to be allowed to fall, and if allowed to fall
it would be, he thought, from the top of the cliff.

The feeling was terrible, but the fall ridiculous, for it was a distance
of a foot on to some straw. Then he felt straw thrown over him--a good
heap--and directly after there was a jolting sensation, and he knew he
was in a cart on a very rugged road. The sound of blows came dull upon
his ear, and a faint hoarse "Go on!" And in spite of his pain, misery,
and the ignorance he was in respecting his fat