Meanwhile, the circumstantial evidence against Gabriel was very strong--stronger even than Mr. Sanders had imagined. Bridalbin, whom Captain Falconer knew as Boring, had informed that officer of his own supposed discoveries with respect to Gabriel's movements; and the evidence he was prepared to give, coupled with the fact that Hotchkiss had pronounced the lad's name with his last breath, made out a case of exceptional strength. Urged on by the vindictiveness of the radical leaders in Congress, it was more than probable that the military court before which the young men were to be tried, would convict any or all of them on much slighter evidence than that which had accumulated against Gabriel. It was all circumstantial evidence of course, but even in the civil courts, and before juries made up of their peers, men accused of crime have frequently been convicted on circumstantial evidence alone--that is to say, on probability. "Now, this is what I wanted to say," remarked Captain Falconer, as they sat in the library at the Clopton Place, and after he had gone over the evidence, item by item: "I was given to understand by the officer who made the arrests that I would shortly be transferred to Savannah, or, rather, to Fort Pulaski, and placed in charge of the prisoners, the idea being that I, knowing something of the young men, would be able to extract a confession from them by fair means. This failing, there are others who could be depended on to employ foul. The officer, who is a very fine soldier, and thoroughly in love with his profession, dropped a hint that, all other means failing, the young men are to be put through a course of sprouts in order to extort a confession." Mr. Sanders looked hard at the Captain; he was taking the young man's measure. What he saw or divined must have been satisfactory, for his face, which had been in a somewhat puckered condition, as he himself would have expressed it, suddenly cleared up, and he rose from his chair with a laugh. "Do you-all know what I've gone an' done?" he asked. "You do so many clever things, William, that we cannot possibly imagine what the newest is," said Meriwether Clopton. "Well, sir, this is the cleverest yit. I've come off from Lucy Lumsden's an' clean forgot my hoss. It's a wonder I didn't forgit my head. Now, you might 'a' said, an' said truly, that I'd forgit a man, or a 'oman, but when William H. Sanders, Esquire, walks off in the broad light of day, an' forgits his hoss, an' that hoss the Rackin' Roan, you may know that his thinkin' machine has slipped a cog. Ef you'll excuse me, I'll go right arter that creetur. I'm mighty glad he can't talk--it's about the only thing he can't do--bekaze he'd gi' me a long an' warm piece of his mind." Captain Falconer rose also, but Meriwether Clopton protested. "I should be glad if you would stay to dinner," he said. "I have several things to show you--some interesting letters from your father, for instance."