"We would rather hear what you have to say, captain," said Mac; and all the rest assented.
"Well, then, you all know the Devil's Punch Bowl!"
"Aye, do we, captain!"
"Well, what you do not know—what nobody knows but myself is this—that about half-way down that awful chasm, in the side of the rock, is a hole, concealed by a clump of evergreens; that hole is the entrance to a cavern of enormous extent! Let that be our next rendezvous! And now, avaunt! Fly! Scatter! and meet me in the cavern to-night, at the usual hour! Listen—carry away all our arms, ammunition, disguises and provisions—so that no vestige of our presence may be left behind. As for dummy, if they can make her speak, the cutting out of her tongue was lost labor—vanish!"
"But our pals in prison!" said Mac.
"They shall be my care. We must lie low for a few days, so as to put the authorities off their guard. Then if our pals recover from their wounds, and have proved game against Church and State, I shall know what measures to take for their deliverance! No more talk now—prepare for your flitting and fly!"
The captain's orders were obeyed, and within two hours from that time no vestige of the robbers' presence remained in the deserted Old Inn.
If any Sheriff's officer had come there with a search-warrant, he would have found nothing suspicious; he would have seen only a poor old dumb woman, busy at her spinning wheel; and if he had questioned her would only have got smiles and shakes of the head for an answer, or the exhibitions of coarse country gloves and stockings of her own knitting, which she would, in dumb-show, beg him to purchase.
Days and weeks passed and the three imprisoned burglars languished in jail, each in a separate cell.
Bitterly each in his heart complained of the leader that had, apparently, deserted them in their direst need. And if neither betrayed him it was probably because they could not do so without deeply criminating themselves, and for no better motive.