tained a prisoner until wanted as a
guide, he reasoned with himself thus:--

"If I do not go, then they vill make Gad go, lame or no lame, and he
vill not be half so lucky to show the wrong road as I can be;"--for Carl
never suspected that what had been said with regard to Mrs. Stackridge's
arrest and confession, and Gad's successful reconnoissance and return,
was all a lie framed to induce him to undertake this very thing. "And if
I did not make pelieve I vas villing to go, then they vould not give me
my hands free, and some chances for myself. I think there vill be some
chances. But Sprowl is to watch, and be ready to shoot me down?" He
shook his head dubiously, and added, "That is vat I do not like quite so
vell!"

He remained in a deep study until dusk. Then Captain Sprowl appeared,
and said to him,--

"Come! you are to go with me."

Carl's heart gave a great bound; but he answered with an air of
indifference,--

"To-night?"

"Yes. At once. Stir!"

"I have not quite finished my supper; but I can put some of it in my
pockets, and be eating on the road." And he added to himself, "I am glad
it is in the night, for that vill be a wery good excuse if I should be
so misfortunate as not to find the cave!"

"Here," said Lysander, imperiously, giving him a twist and push,--"march
before me! And fast! Now, not a word unless you are spoken to; and don't
you dodge unless you want a shot."

Thus instructed, Carl led the way. He did not speak, and he did not
dodge. One circumstance overjoyed him. He saw no signs of a military
expedition on foot. Was Lysander going alone with him to the mountains?
"I sushpect I can find some trick for him, shmart as he is!" thought
Carl.

They left the town behind them. They took to the fields; they entered
the shadow of the mountains, the western sky above whose tops was yet
silvery bright with the shining wake of the sunset. A few faint stars
were visible, and just a glimmer of moonlight was becoming apparent in
the still twilight gloom.

"We are going to have a quiet little adwenture together!" chuckled Carl.
One thing was singular, however. Lysander did not tamely follow his
lead: on the contrary, he directed him where to go; and Carl saw, to his
dismay, that they were proceeding in a very direct route towards the
cave.

"Never mind! Ven ve come to some conwenient place maybe something vill
happen," he said consolingly to himself.

Then suddenly consternation met him, as it