CHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH THE HERO IS FOUND TO BE A PERSON OF NO DESCENT WHATEVER.
At ten o'clock the soldiers came and reported
themselves to their commander. One of them, presumably
the officer in charge, was closeted with
the Captain in the library for no less a time than
an hour and a quarter. The others meantime put
their jaded horses up, procured some food, and retired
to rest themselves. At a few minutes to twelve
o'clock, as the Mountain could not go to Mahomet,
owing to some question of his knee, Mahomet went
to the Mountain. At that hour a spy posted on
the stairs informed me that my papa, the Earl,
hopped—gout and all—to the Captain in the library.
Meantime Emblem and myself were discussing the
situation, behind locked doors, exhaustively, but
with a deal of trepidation. She, it seemed, had
just come into the possession of a piece of news of
a very alarming kind. It was to the effect that
the Captain, not wishing to disturb his knee, had
passed the night in his chair in front of the library
fire. And that apartment opened in the entrance
hall, and was near the very flight of stairs up which
the prisoner had passed. It was thus all too prob-
