I could tell presently, by the creak of the evener and the stroke
of the hoofs, that we were climbing a long hill. We stopped
shortly; then they began helping us out. They led us forward a few
paces, the chain rattling on a stone pavement. When we heard the
bang of an iron door behind us, they unlocked the heavy fetter.
This done, they led us along a gravel walk and over a sounding
stretch of boards,--a bridge, I have always thought,--through
another heavy door and down a winding flight of stone steps. They
led us on through dark passages, over stone paving, and halted us,
after a long walk, letting our eyes free. We were in black
darkness. There were two guards before and two behind us bearing
candles. They unshackled us, and opened a lattice door of heavy
iron, bidding us enter. I knew then that we were going into a
dungeon, deep under the walls of a British fort somewhere on the
frontier. A thought stung me as D'ri and I entered this black hole
and sat upon a heap of straw. Was this to be the end of our
fighting and of us?

"You can have a candle a day," said a guard as he blew out the one
he carried, laying it, with a tinder-box, on a shelf in the wall of
rock beside me. Then they filed out, and the narrow door shut with
a loud bang. We peered through at the fading flicker of the
candles. They threw wavering, ghostly shadows on every wall of the
dark passage, and suddenly went out of sight. We both stood
listening a moment.

"Curse the luck!" I whispered presently.

"Jest as helpless es if we was hung up by the heels," said D'ri,
groping his way to the straw pile. "Ain' no use gittin' wrathy."

"What 'll we do?" I whispered.

"Dunno," said he; "an' when ye dunno whut t' dew, don' dew nuthin'.
Jest stan' still; thet's whut I b'lieve in."

He lighted the candle, and went about, pouring its glow upon every
wall and into every crack and corner of our cell--a small chamber
set firm in masonry, with a ceiling so far above our heads we could
see it but dimly, the candle lifted arm's-length.

"Judas Priest!" said D'ri, as he stopped the light with thumb and
finger. "I 'm goin' t' set here 'n th' straw luk an ol' hen 'n'
ile up m' thinker 'n' set 'er goin'. One o' them kind hes t' keep
'is mouth shet er he can't never dew ho thinkin'. Bymby, like es
not, I 'll hev suthin' t1 say et 'll 'mount t' suthin'."

We lay back on the straw in silence. I did a lot of thinking that
brought me little hope