lty in seeing the track by which the cart had come, for the
marks of the wheels were still visible in the soft soil. He
followed this until, after about two miles' walking, he came to the
edge of the wood. Then he retraced his steps for a quarter of a
mile, turned off, and with some difficulty made his way into a
patch of thick undergrowth, where, after first cutting a formidable
cudgel, he lay down, completely exhausted.

Late in the afternoon he was aroused from a doze by the sound of
footsteps, and, looking through the screen of leaves, he saw his
late jailers hurrying along the path. The charcoal burner carried a
heavy axe, while the Jew, whose head was bound up with a cloth, had
a long knife in his girdle. They went as far as the end of the
forest, and then retraced their steps slowly. They were talking
loudly, and Charlie could gather, from the few words he understood,
and by their gestures, something of the purport of their
conversation.

"I told you it was of no use your coming on as far as this," the
Jew said. "Why, he was hardly strong enough to walk."

"He managed to knock you down, and afterwards to drag you into the
house," the other said.

"It does not require much strength to knock a man down with a heavy
club, when he is not expecting it, Conrad. He certainly did drag me
in, but he was obliged to sit down afterwards, and I watched him
out of one eye as he was making his preparations, and he could only
just totter about. I would wager you anything he cannot have gone
two hundred yards from the house. That is where we must search for
him. I warrant we shall find him hidden in a thicket thereabouts."

"We shall have to take a lantern then, for it will be dark before
we get back."

"Our best plan will be to leave it alone till morning. If we sit
outside the hut, and take it in turns to watch, we shall hear him
when he moves, which he is sure to do when it gets dark. It will be
a still night, and we should hear a stick break half a mile away.
We shall catch him, safe enough, before he has gone far."

"Well, I hope we shall have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the
charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know
as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his
thumb on you."

"If we can't find this Swede, I would not wait here for any money.
I would fly at once."

"You would need to fly, in truth, to get beyond Ben Soloman's
clutches," the charcoal burner sa