mpty. I heard
at least three go out, and if only two entered when you were on duty,
Luke, then we are alone in the building; but in order that we may take
no chances, my advice is that none of us speak above a whisper."

"You think we have need of taking council together?" Archie asked,
whereupon Hiram replied grimly:

"Aye, lad, if ever the time was that we needed to thrash out a matter in
order to come upon the best road, surely it is now."

"Then you have come to believe that Master Lord is not such a friend to
the Cause as he professes, even though the lieutenant at the battery
declared he would trust the man with his life?" I asked.

"The lieutenant's eyes may have been shut just as Job Lord would shut
ours," Hiram said with a smile, much as if it pleased him to have thus
settled the matter in his own mind. "It must be that this man has done
good service among our people, otherwise he would not have such a
reputation for loyalty to the colony. But whatever he may have done in
the past, it seems certain to me he is ready to play us false now."

"I fail to see why he need take any roundabout lane to get at such a
knavish result," Harvey suggested. "If he counts to give us up to the
lobster backs, it only needs that he call in the first squad which
comes past the building, for here we are like rats in a trap, ready to
be taken whenever it is the pleasure of those who have caught us."

"I wish it might be possible for me to make that part of it plain in my
mind," Hiram said thoughtfully. "I can figure out all else; but why it
should be his purpose to keep us here any length of time, instead of
delivering us up at once, is more than I can come at. Certain it is he's
playing a game, and it remains for us to learn what it may be."

"And in the meanwhile what about Silas?" Archie asked, whereupon Hiram
replied sharply, as if it vexed him because the lad would carry the
conversation so far afield:

"He is no more a prisoner than we are, and until it is possible for us
to get out of this place, at the same time finding some means of
preventing Job Lord from giving the lobster backs warning of our
whereabouts, we need not trouble our heads concerning him. I have no
mind to arouse your fears, lad, and surely you can understand the
situation as well as I; but to my thinking we would be safer shut up in
the Bridewell, as prisoners of war, than here in the power of this man
who claims to be devoted heart and soul to the C