ed to the darkness and they saw more
clearly the outline of the opening to the outside world. Suddenly Elinor
shivered as again the nearness of a presence somewhere possessed them
both.

"Let's go! Let's go!" she whispered, huddling close to her companion,
whose grip on her arm tightened.

He was conscious of a light behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he
caught a gleam beyond the opening in the rear wall through which they
had just crept; and in that gleam, a villainous face, with still black
eyes, looking straight at him. The light disappeared, and he heard the
faint sound of something creeping toward them. Vic could fight any man
living. Nature built him for that. He had no fear for himself. But here
was Elinor, and he must think of her first. At that instant, the doorway
darkened, and a form slipped into the cavern somewhere. Oh, wind and
rain, and forked blue lightning and the thunder's roar, the river's
mad floods, the steep, slippery rocks, and jagged ledges, all were kind
beside this secret human presence, cruelly silent and treacherous.

Victor Burleigh drew Elinor closer to him, and whispered low:

"Don't be afraid with me to guard you."

Even in that deep gloom, he caught the outline of a white face with
star-bright eyes lifted toward his face.

"I'm not afraid with you," she whispered.

Behind them stealthy movements somewhere. Between them and the doorway,
stealthy movements somewhere; but all so still and slow, they stretched
the listening nerve almost to the breaking point. Suddenly, a big, hard
hand gripped Burleigh's shoulder, and a dead still voice, that Vic could
not recognize, breathed into his ear, "Go quick and quiet! I'll stand
for it. Go!"

It was old Bond Saxon.

Vic caught Elinor's arm, and with one stride they sprang from the cave's
mouth up to the open ground beyond it. Something behind them, it might
have been a groan or a smothered oath, reached their ears, as they sped
away down a narrow ravine. The rain had ceased and overhead the stars
were peeping from the edges of feathery flying clouds; and all the
sodden autumn night was still at last, save for the gurgling waters of a
little stream down the rocky glen.

The Sunrise bell was striking eleven when they reached the bridge
across the Walnut, and the beacon light from the dome began to twinkle
a welcome now and then through the dripping branches of the leafless
trees. A few minutes later, Victor Burleigh brought Elinor saf