I UNCOVER CAPTAIN GRANT The thicket was sufficiently dense to conceal us from the man, who remained standing at the foot of the steps.

He was but a mere dark shadow, and I could not even distinguish that he was a soldier, yet the danger of his presence was sufficiently great, for should he advance to the right he would come upon Grant's unconscious form, and in that silence the slightest noise might arouse suspicion.

Mistress Claire still clung to my hand, but only to whisper a sentence of instruction.
"Go straight north, Major, until you reach the hedge; follow the shadow of that beyond the orchard, and then take the road running westward.
Don't mount until you reach there--good-bye." "Good-bye, you will not forget me ?" "I--I am afraid not, but--but you must go!" I left her standing there, a faint gleam of white against the dark shrubbery, motionless.

Grasping the bit of the horse I picked my course slowly across the lawn, watchful that the intervening thicket hid my movements, the soft carpet of grass muffling every sound.

We reached the hedge,--a high, impassable barrier to further progress in that direction, but here the shadows were sufficiently dense for us to proceed faster, with little peril of discovery.