When the time came for the carrying out of sentence of the three who had been condemned to death, it was found that one of them was missing and that one, the greatest villain of them all, Captain Flint himself!
How could this have happened? No one had visited him on the previous day but Carl Rosenthrall, and he was a magistrate, and surely he would be the last one to aid in the escape of a prisoner!
That he was gone however, was a fact. There was no disputing that.
But If it were a fact that he had made his escape, it was equally true, that he could not have gone very far, and the community were not in the humor to let such a desperate character as he was now known to be, escape without making a strenuous effort to recapture him.
The execution of the two who had been sentenced to die at the same time, was delayed for a few days in the hope of learning from them, the places where Flint would most probably fly to, but they maintained a sullen silence on the subject.
They then applied to Jones Bradley with, at first, no better result. But when Henry Billings, who was one of those appointed to visit him, happened to allude to the strange fate of Hellena Rosenthrall, he hesitated a moment, and then said he knew where the girl was, and that she had been captured by Captain Flint, and kept in close confinement by him.
He had no wish he said to betray his old commander, though he knew that he had been treated badly by him, but he would like to save the young woman.
Captain Flint might be in the same place, but if he was, he thought that he would kill the girl sooner than give her up.
If Captain Flint, was not there, the only ones in the cave besides the girl, were a squaw, and Captain Flint's negro boy, Bill.
For the sake of the girl Bradley said he would guide a party to the cave.