ured. "Have you any food?"

"You shall have some food, directly it is prepared. Take a drink of
wine, and see if you can eat a bit of bread while the broth is
preparing."

Charlie drank a little of the wine that was put to his lips, and
then broke up the bread, and ate it crumb by crumb, as if it were a
great effort to do so, although he had difficulty in restraining
himself from eating it voraciously. When he had finished it, he
closed his eyes again, as if sleep had overpowered him. An hour
later, there was a touch on his shoulder.

"Here is some broth, young fellow. Wake up and drink that, it will
do you good."

Charlie, as before, slowly sipped down the broth, and then really
fell asleep, for the jolting had fatigued him terribly.

It was evening when he awoke. Two men were sitting at a blazing
fire. When he moved, one of them brought him another basin of
broth, and fed him with a spoon.

Charlie had been long enough in the country to know, by the
appearance of the room, that he was in a peasant's hut. He wondered
why he had been brought there, and concluded that it must be
because Allan Ramsay had set so stringent a search on foot in the
city, that they considered it necessary to take him away.

"They will not keep me here long," he said to himself. "I am sure
that I could walk now, and, in another two or three days, I shall
be strong enough to go some distance. That soup has done me a deal
of good. I believe half my weakness is from hunger."

He no longer kept up the appearance of unconsciousness, and, in the
morning, put various questions, to the man who spoke Swedish, as to
what had happened and how he came to be there. This man was
evidently, from his dress and appearance, a Jew, while the other
was as unmistakably a peasant, a rough powerfully-built man with an
evil face. The Jew gave him but little information, but told him
that in a day or two, when he was strong enough to listen, a friend
would come who would tell him all about it.

On the third day, he heard the sound of an approaching horse, and
was not surprised when, after a conversation in a low tone outside,
Ben Soloman entered. Charlie was now much stronger, but he had
carefully abstained from showing any marked improvement, speaking
always in a voice a little above a whisper, and allowing the men to
feed him, after making one or two pretended attempts to convey the
spoon to his mouth.

"Well, Master Englishman," Ben Soloman said, as he