"They'll have a pretty down on us now," answered Burnham. "We were fools not to go and die with the others."
"De cachot—wid de snow coming in to bury us froo de naked windows! Oh, I wish I dead and in hell—it warm dar. I no care for twenty million debbils so long as dey take me into de warm place."
"You'll be warm enough to-morrow. They'll flog us for this when we refuse to say anything about the others," returned William Burnham.
"Flogging's better'n dying. Durn the silly monkeys—they might just as well have cut their throats as go," declared Carberry. "I dare say every doodle of 'em's dead by now. Miller's a loss to the country for sartain."
In silence they waited another minute; then Burnham addressed Sam Cuffee.
"Ring the great bell, nigger; I can't lift my hand to it."
Soon the three were back again within the prison walls, and as Carberry had expected, a cachot opened frozen jaws for them. Untold misery they endured, although a soldier at his own risk fetched them a bundle of straw to spread between their bodies and the stones. Commandant Cottrell himself directed the punishment.
"As for the others," he said, "we are well quit of the troublesome rascals. They'll be out of further mischief before dawn. Nothing could live in this, for Satan and all his angels are loose to-night."