rstood the
situation, and would not interrupt. Those whom he led also paused and
listened--as did the sentinels, though they understood no word of what
was said.

Poor Grummidge had evidently been brought very low, for his once manly
voice was weak and his tones were desponding. Never before, perhaps,
was prayer offered in a more familiar or less perfunctory manner.

"O Lord," he said, "_do_ get us out o' this here scrape somehow! We
don't deserve it, though we _are_ awful sinners, for we've done nothin'
as I knows on to hurt them savages. We can't speak to them an' they
can't speak to us, an' there's nobody to help us. Won't _you_ do it,
Lord?"

"Sure it's no manner o' use goin' on like that, Grummidge," said another
voice. "You've done it more than wance a'ready, an' there's no answer.
Very likely we've bin too wicked intirely to deserve an answer at all."

"Speak for yourself Squill," growled a voice that was evidently that of
Little Stubbs. "I don't think I've been as wicked as you would make
out, nor half as wicked as yourself! Anyhow, I'm goin' to die game, if
it comes to that. We can only die once, an' it'll soon be over."

"Ochone!" groaned Squill, "av it wasn't for the short allowance they've
putt us on, an' the bad walkin' every day, an' all day, I wouldn't mind
so much, but I've scarce got strength enough left to sneeze, an' as to
my legs, och! quills they are instid of Squill's."

"For shame, man," remonstrated Grummidge, "to be makin' your bad jokes
at a time like this."

The tone of the conversation now led the young Indian to infer that
interruption might not be inappropriate, so he turned round the corner
of rock that hid the interior from view, and led his party in front of
the captives. They were seated on the ground with their backs against
the wall, and their arms tied behind them.

The aspect of the unfortunate prisoners was indeed forlorn. It would
have been ludicrous had it not been intensely pitiful. So woe-begone
and worn were their faces that their friends might have been excused had
they failed to recognise them, but, even in the depths of his misery and
state of semi-starvation, it was impossible to mistake the expressive
visage of poor Squill, whose legs were indeed reduced to something not
unsuggestive of "quills," to say nothing of the rest of his body.

But all the other prisoners, Grummidge, Stubbs, Blazer, Taylor, and
Garnet, were equally reduced and miserable, for