The old sailor had unraveled their socks in order to procure that which would enable them to haul up the rope. There was no need of word or signal. Captain Hanaford made fast one end of the half-inch manilla, gave the yarn-twine a jerk in token that all was ready, and then we payed out on the rope to make certain it went up without kinks. In less than three minutes a man slipped down the line at a rate of speed that must have heated his hands in great shape, and he was hardly more than on the ground before the second prisoner followed. We had effected the escape, and it now remained to get under cover in the shortest possible space of time. "It won't do to run; but you can keep close at my heels," the captain said as he set off at a walk which fully equaled running, and we followed very closely, I literally holding my breath as I tried to realize that the task which had seemed so formidable a few moments previous, had been accomplished with the greatest ease. CHAPTER XIX. THE UNEXPECTED. There is little need for me to set it down that we neither slackened pace nor halted until we were in the cuddy of the pungy. Not a member of our party spoke until we descended the companion-way stairs, and faced the lads and my father, who had lighted a candle as a sort of welcome, and then Darius exclaimed: "Well I'm blowed if you don't look kind'er cozy here! Who'd think this crowd had been hob-nobbin' with the Britishers for the last two or three days? Bob Hanaford, where did the lads run afoul of you, an' why didn't you get your pungy down river before the enemy's fleet came up?" There was a deal of handshaking and congratulations before we settled down to anything like rational talk, and then Jerry and I told how we found the captain, and what had happened since Darius left the smoke-house. Then it was the old man's turn to give an account of his misadventures, and this he did after refreshing himself with an enormous piece of tobacco. "I went out, leavin' you people in hidin', with the idee that if many shops were to be robbed by the soldiers I might get somethin' to eat out'er the general wreck. First off nothin' came my way, an' then I ran square across a basket of ship's bread. Thinks I, this is good enough for one trip, an' I gathered the stuff under my arm, puttin' for the smoke-house under full sail without bein' noticed by the red-coats, who were havin' too lively a time to give me much attention. As luck would have it, the thought never came into my mind that I had need to look for anybody but Britishers, an' before I was halfway to port I struck up agin that sneak, Elias Macomber.