CHAPTER VIII.
THE HUNTED LIFE.
We will again return to the fort. It was the day subsequent to the arrest of Captain Sherwood and the disappearance of Imogene Lear.
These unlooked-for events had furnished sufficient matter for the gossips of the garrison; but now something else had turned up which bid fair to overwhelm them.
In fact, the whole community was wild with excitement about an apparition that a dozen or more affirmed to have seen the previous night, pacing to and fro upon the parapets.
The soldiers became superstitious, and were collected here and there in groups of three or four discussing the matter.
“I tell yer,” exclaimed a burly-looking fellow of one of these crowds, “my eyes never cheated me yet, nor did they last night. It wor he; I am sure of it!”
“But, Tompkins,” said another, “how could it have been the cap’n? for I kept close guard at his cell-door all night, and I am certain he was there, too.”
“Can’t help it, if ye did,” chimed in Putney, the scout. “Bill and I saw Sherwood on th’ parapets, as sartin as we live. He wor all-fired pale, and wore a long, white, shaggy cloak that looked awful enough to make one’s teeth chatter and the hair to stand up straight.”
“I reckon that’s so, Put,” said Bill; “my legs shake just a leetle now.”
“I wouldn’t take that post on the parapets for half the world,” said a third man.