"I saw only one, but he was a monster," was the ready reply. "It's no use brooding over trying to escape by force. We're utterly helpless, and that jolt on my head has rendered me unfit for diplomatic efforts." "What do you suppose they will do with us?" "They won't dare let us go." "Why?" "They'd be afraid that we would report their illicit distillery." "Ah, I see." The affair began to take on a very serious and gloomy aspect, and the room was growing oppressively hot, owing to the presence of a a small but energetic furnace that glowed under a sighing boiler. Outside, with the clearing sky and refreshed air, there arose a clamor of bird-song in the dripping trees. Under the floor the spring-stream gurgled sweetly. "Ye 'member Abbott's still house on ole Lulbegrud?" said the old man, pursuing his reminisences, after he had permitted his grand-nephew to taste the "mounting jew," "an' Dan Rankin's ole bob-tail hoss?" "Very well, indeed," responded Crane, "and Billy Pace's blackberry fields where I picked berries in summer and chased rabbits in winter." "Take er nother drop o' the jyful juice, boy, fur the mem'ry o' ole Kaintuck!" "Oh dear! but isn't it incomparably awful?" exclaimed Mrs. Nancy Jones Black, gazing in horrified fascination upon the two Kentuckians, as they bowed to each other and drank alternately from the little jug. "Characteristic Southern scene not used by Craddock," murmured Miss Crabb, making a whole page of a single note. "Don't this yere liquor taste o' one thing an' smell o' another an' jes' kinder git ter the lowest p'int o' yer appetite?" continued Crane's great uncle Peter. "Delicious beyond compare," responded the young man, drinking again, "it is nectar of the gods." Mrs. Nancy Jones Black groaned, but could not withdraw her eyes from the scene. "Good deal like ole times down to Abbott's still-house on Lulbegrud, boy," the old man suggested, "ye don't forgit erbout Dan Rankin's mule a-kickin' ole man Hornback's hat off?" The poet laughed retrospectively and mopped his glowing face with his handkerchief. The heat from the furnace and the stimulus of the excellent beverage were causing him to feel the need of fresh air. Indeed, everybody was beginning to pant. Miss Moyne was so overcome with excitement and with the heat of the place, that she was ready to faint, when the door was flung open and Tolliver appeared. A rush of sweet cool air, flooding the room, revived her, just as she was sinking into Dufour's arms. XVIII.