I had thrown off the dogs at the last piece of water; and in the marshy ground the scent did not lie, and could not be picked up.

For a brief moment I was safe; but I was exhausted almost to death.

I could go no further.

I lay down beneath the shadow of some arbour within the sheltering precincts of Chad, and wondered what would become of me." "Yes, yes! and then-- ?" "Then I remembered a story told me by my grandsire, years and years gone by, of a secret chamber at Chad, which had sheltered many a fugitive in the hour of peril.

Lying out in the soft night air, I recalled bit by bit all that I had been told--the very drawings the old man had made to amuse me in a childish sickness, how the door opened, and how access was had to the chamber.