"Where is Salina? Where is Toby?"
"Toby has just left his charge to see what discovery Salina has made outside. She went out previously and thought she saw soldiers."
At that moment Toby came running in.
"Dar's some men way down by the ravine! O, sar! I's bery glad you's come, sar!"
Having announced the discovery, and greeted Penn and Virginia, he went to look at his prisoner. He had been absent from him but a minute: he found him lying as he had left him, and did not reflect, simple old soul, how much may be secretly accomplished by a desperate villain in that brief space of time.
Penn took Pomp's glass, climbed along the rocky shelf, peered over the thickets, and saw on the bank of the ravine, where Salina pointed them out to him, several men. They were some distance below Gad's Leap (as he named the place where the spy met his death), and seemed to be occupied in extinguishing a fire. He levelled the glass. The recent burning of the trees and undergrowth had cleared the field for its operation. His eye sparkled as he lowered it.
"I recognize one of our friends in a new uniform!"—handing the glass to Salina.
Returning to the cave, he added, in Virginia's ear,—
"Augustus Bythewood!"
The bright young brow contracted: "Not coming here?"