Destruction! Misery! The ship is going
down. Leave it."

"You are misinformed. There is no leak in our ship," said Jack.

Mr. Pinhorn shut his eyes and shook his head mournfully. Then, with a
wave of his hand, he pronounced the doom of the western world in one
whispered word:

"Ashes!"

For a moment his face and form were alive with exclamatory suggestion.
Then he shook his head and said:

"Doomed! Poor soul! Go out in the yard with your fellow rebels. They
are taking the air."

The yard was an opening walled in by the main structure and its two
wings and a wooden fence some fifteen feet high. There was a ragged,
dirty rabble of "rebel" prisoners, among whom was Solomon Binkus, all
out for an airing. The old scout had lost flesh and color. He held
Jack's hand and stood for a moment without speaking.

"I never was so glad and so sorry in my life," said Solomon. "It's a
hell-mogrified place to be in. Smells like a blasted whale an' is as
cold as the north side of a grave stun on a Janooary night, an'
starvation fare, an' they's a man here that's come down with the
smallpox. How'd ye git ketched?"

Jack briefly told of his capture.

"I got sick one day an' couldn't hide 'cause I were makin' tracks in
the snow so I had to give in," said Solomon. "Margaret has been here,
but they won't let 'er come no more 'count o' the smallpox. Sends me
suthin' tasty ev'ry day er two. I tol' er all 'bout ye. I guess the
smallpox couldn't keep 'er 'way if she knowed you was here. But she
won't be 'lowed to know it. This 'ere Clarke boy has p'isoned the
jail. Nobody 'll come here 'cept them that's dragged. He's got it all
fixed fer ye. I wouldn't wonder if he'd be glad to see ye rotted up
with smallpox."

"What kind of a man is Pinhorn?"

"A whey-faced hypercrit an' a Tory. Licks the feet o' the British when
they come here."

Jack and Solomon lay for weeks in this dirty, noisome jail, where their
treatment was well calculated to change opinions not deeply rooted in
firm soil. They did not fear the smallpox, as both were immune. But
their confinement was, as doubtless it was intended to be, memorably
punitive. They were "rebels"--law-breakers, human rubbish whose
offenses bordered upon treason. The smallpox patient was soon taken
away, but other conditions were not improved. They slept on straw
infested with vermin. Their cover and food were insufficient and "not
fit fer a dog," in the words of