ngle person,
traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or
children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and put us
all on the alert. The Captain carried a cocked pistol, I held my sword
drawn, and kept a watchful eye on HIM; and the deeper the dusk fell in
the wood, the more cautiously we went, until at last we came out with a
sort of jump into a wider and lighter path.

I looked up and down, and saw behind me a vista of tree-trunks, before
me a wooden bridge and an open meadow, lying cold and grey in the
twilight; and I stood in astonishment. We were in the old path to the
Chateau! I shivered at the thought that he was going to take us there,
to the house, to Mademoiselle!

The Captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb man
went on unheeding until he reached the wooden bridge. There he stopped
short, and looked towards the dark outline of the house, which was
just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in the west wing. As the
Captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to
wring them towards the house.

'Have a care!' the Captain growled. 'Play me no tricks, or--'

He did not finish the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his
impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the
left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred
yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet
through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as
it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise
above the water, and grew steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where
the stream swept round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small
ravine, dark and sheer-sided. The water brawled along the bottom, over
boulders and through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood
shaped itself into a low cliff; but halfway between its summit and the
water a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly
visible.

'Ten to one, a cave!' the Captain muttered. 'It is a likely place.'

'And an ugly one!' I replied with a sneer. 'Which one against ten might
hold for hours!'

'If the ten had no pistols--yes!' he answered viciously. 'But you see we
have. Is he going that way?'

He was. As soon as this was clear, Larolle turned to his comrade.

'Lieutenant,' he said, speaking in a low voice, though the chafing of
the stream below us covered ordinary