th time to get some glimmer of an idea regarding the strange
doings of the night before, as well as questioning whether it might not
be possible for us to learn whether Master Lord was at home.

While we talked Hiram, growing impatient, went boldly up the ladder,
setting his shoulder against the trap-door; but failing to move it ever
so slightly, and at this seeming evidence of our being held prisoners we
grew alarmed.

So narrow was the ladder that two of us could not stand side by side on
the upper rung in order to come at the barrier, and when each in turn
had spent his strength against the heavy timbers without effect, we came
together near the table, groping about that we might touch hands, for by
this time the flame of the lantern had died away entirely, leaving us in
total darkness.

"If Master Lord wanted to make friends with the Britishers, he would be
on a fair road to so doing by giving us up to General Gage," I
suggested, striving to speak in a mirthful tone as if in my mind there
was no possibility of such treachery on his part, and Harvey clutched me
by the hand nervously, as he whispered:

"Don't! Don't give words to what seems so very like the truth!"

"Have done with talk like that!" Hiram cried angrily. "To judge Master
Lord an enemy is the same as calling the lieutenant, who treated us in
such friendly fashion, a traitor."

"But why are we locked in here when it surely must be daylight?"

"There can be no answer to that question until Master Lord himself comes
to make it, and I am bound to hold him a good man and true because of
what we have been told, until he proves the contrary."

I believe Hiram himself was more than a little alarmed, for it seemed to
me he struggled overly much to convince us he was apparently easy in
mind, and we were yet giving words to our painful doubts when, without
our having heard a sound previously, the trap-door was raised, letting
into the cellar a flood of light as if the day had already grown old.

It was no more than natural we should step quickly toward the foot of
the ladder, meeting there Master Lord himself, who looked about as if
surprised because we were in darkness, and then, ascending quickly, he
returned before we had time to follow, bringing with him the smaller
lantern.

Not until he had set this aflame and placed it on the table did he give
any heed to the questions which we were showering upon him; but then he
said with the air of one who is v