"Curse you!" he cried, in impotent rage. "If you were not a woman I would knock you down."
"If you feel like it, don't let so small a matter that I am a girl and your colonel's daughter interfere with your pleasure. Strike me!"
But Barrows only stared at her with a white face, and with a muttered curse left the room.
"This way, miss," said the sergeant. She entered the room into which Ted had been taken, but he was not there.
In the middle of the floor was an open trapdoor.
"I must ask you to go down there," said the sergeant. "You will find a ladder. You will be safe, and it is not for long. We start for the post soon, I am told."
Hallie made no reply, but did as she was bid.
The cellar was as dark as a pocket, and she could see absolutely nothing as her feet touched the earth floor.
But she found a box, and sat down upon it. The trap was closed, a bolt shot in it, and she was in Stygian darkness.
She was terribly frightened at first, but there were no rats in the cellar, which she had at first feared, and she fell to thinking what it all meant. Surely the army must have gone entirely mad that she, Hallie Croffut, its pet, should be under arrest in a dark and musty cellar.