reat you, and your term of service is doubled."

"And yet men have gotten away," said Landless.

"Yes, but not many. And those that get away are seldom heard of more.
The forest swallows them up, and after a while their skulls roll about
the hills, playthings for wolves, or the deep waters flow over their
bones, or they lie in a little heap of ashes at the foot of some Indian
torture stake."

"Why did you try to escape?" asked Landless.

The man gave him another sidelong look.

"I tried because I was a fool. I am no longer a fool. I know a better
way."

"A better way!"

"Hush!" The man looked over his shoulder and then whispered, "Will you
go with me to-night?"

"Go with you! Where?"

"To a man I know--a man who gives good advice."

"Many can do that, friend."

"Ay, but not show the way to profit by it as doth this man."

"Who is he?"

"A servant even as we are servants,--a learned and godly man, albeit not
a follower of the blessed Ludovick. Listen! About the rising of the moon
to-night, slip from your cabin and come to the blasted pine on the shore
of the inlet. There will be a boat there and I will be in it. We will go
to the cabin of the man of whom I speak. He is a cripple, and knowing
that he cannot run away, the godless and roistering Malignant who calls
himself our master hath given him a hut among the marshes, where he
mendeth nets. Come! I may not say more than that it will be worth your
while."

"If we are caught--"

"Our skins pay for us. But the Lord will shut the eyes of the overseers
that they see not, and their ears that they hear not, and we will be
safely back before the dawn. You will come?"

"Yes," said Landless. "I will come."

CHAPTER VI

THE HUT ON THE MARSH

It was shortly after midnight when the two servants slipped along the
inlet, silently and warily, and keeping their boat well under the shore.
It was a crazy affair, barely large enough for two, and requiring
constant bailing. When they had made half a mile from the quarters, the
Muggletonian, who rowed, turned the boat's head across the inlet, and
ran into a very narrow creek that wound in mazy doubles through the
marshes. They entered it, made the first turn, and the broad bosom of
the inlet, lit by a low, crimson moon, was as if it had never been. On
every side high marsh grass soughed in the night wind,--plains of
blackness with the red moon rising from them. The tide was low. So close
were the banks of