ces of his pursuers; and he had begun to congratulate himself on the
ultimate success of his stratagem, when his foot struck upon something
which moved out of his way. It was an animal--perhaps a cat. He moved on.

"Quit! Lemme alone!" said a snarling voice beneath him.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MAN IN THE CHIMNEY

"Lemme alone!" repeated the voice in the chimney several times before
Somers could make up his mind as to the precise nature of the adventure
upon which he had stumbled.

There was another man in the chimney; and this was the full extent of his
knowledge in regard to the being who had stepped into his darkened path.
A succession of exciting questions presented themselves to his mind, all
of which were intimately connected with the individual with whom, for the
moment, his lot seemed to be cast. Was he friend, or foe? Yankee, rebel,
or neutral? What was he in the chimney for? What business had he there?

Somers had some knowledge of a useful and otherwise rightly respectable
class of persons, known as chimney-sweeps, who pursue their dark trade up
and down such places as that in which he was now burrowing; but the
sweeps were a civilized institution, and he could hardly expect to find
them in this benighted section of the Ancient Dominion. He did not,
therefore, waste a moment in the consideration of the question, whether
the man beneath him was a chimney-sweep or not; for the supposition was
too improbable even for the pages of a sensational novel.

The individual was in the chimney; and there seemed to be the boundary of
knowledge on the subject. If he was not crazy, he was there for
concealment; and, thus far the two occupants of the chimney were in
sympathy with each other. Why should the man wish to conceal himself? Was
he a hated Yankee like himself, pursued and hunted down by the myrmidons
of Jeff Davis? Certainly, if he was a rebel, he had no business in the
chimney. It was no place for rebels; they had no occasion to be there.

Of course, then, the man must be a Yankee, a fellow-sufferer with Somers
himself, and therein entitled to the utmost consideration from him. But,
if a Yankee, what Yankee? The species did not abound on this side of the
river; and he could not imagine who it was, unless it were one of his own
party. Just then, induced by this train of reflection, came a tremendous
suggestion, which seemed more probable than anything he had before
thought of. Was it possible that the oth