nce in the house?"

"Sartain sure, marster!" answered Joe, in the most emphatic manner.

"Then I must warn you not to hint--mind, Joe--not so much as to _hint_
the fact to any living soul," said the captain, solemnly.

"Hi, Marse Capping! who you think is a 'fernal fool? Not dis Joe,"
answered the negro, indignantly.

"Mind, then, that's all," repeated the captain, who then dismissed Joe,
and beckoned the motherly looking colored woman to come to him.

"Margy," he whispered, "do you understand the horrible danger in which
Mrs. Berners stands?"

"Oh, my good Lord, Marse Clement, don't I understand it? My blood runs
cold and hot by turns every time I look at her and think of it,"
muttered the woman, with a dismayed look.

"I am glad you feel and appreciate this peril. It is said that no secret
is safe that is known to three persons. This secret is known to five:
Mr. and Mrs. Berners, Joe, you, and myself! I think I can rely on the
secresy of all," said Captain Pendleton, with a meaning look.

"You can rely on _mine_, Marse Clement! I'd suffer my tongue to be tored
out by the roots afore ever I'd breathe a word about her being here,"
said the woman.

"Quite right! Now we must see about concealing her for a few days, until
we can ship her off to some foreign country."

"To be sure, marster; but are you certain that no one down stairs saw
her when she came in?"

"Quite certain," answered the captain.

Meanwhile Sybil sat down on the chair at the side of Lyon's bed, and
with her hand clasped in his, began to tell the story of her abduction
and captivity among the robbers.

Lyon Berners, seeing his host now at leisure, beckoned him to approach
and hear the strange story.

Sybil told it briefly to her wondering audience.

"And if they had not carried me off, I should not now be at liberty,"
she concluded.

That this was true, they all agreed.

Now Sybil had to hear the particulars of the explosion, and the names of
its victims. She shuddered as Captain Pendleton went over the list.

"One feels the less compassion, however, when one considers that this
was a case of the 'engineer hoist with his own petard.'"

"Don't you think, Marse Clement, as Mrs. Berners would be the better
for a bit of breakfast?" inquired Aunt Margy.

"Certainly. And here is Berners, touched nothing yet. And everything
allowed to grow cold in our excitement and forgetfulness," said Captain
Pendleton, anxiously examining into the con