buried in the thick bushes and fallen leaves, to let them pass before recommencing my flight. In a minute more they were at the spot I had left. They stopped here, where the path branched off towards the ruin, and deliberated. "This must be the way," said one. "Of course; there is no other, you fool," said another. "Forward!" cried a third voice, apparently belonging to the leader of the party, "or the lieutenant will get there from the beach sooner than we. Forward!" The patrol ascended the path towards the ruin, and I cautiously raised my head and saw them disappearing among the trees. When I thought them at a sufficient distance, I arose, and struck deeper into the wood. The impulse to self-destruction had passed; I had but one desire, to save myself; and the almost miraculous manner in which I had just avoided a peril from which there seemed no escape, filled me with new hope, as a losing player feels at the first lucky cast. When we boys played "robbers and soldiers" in the fir-wood around my native town, I had always managed to be of the robber party, and they invariably chose me their captain. The duties of this office I had always so discharged that at last none were willing to take the part of soldiers. The boast that I had so often made in our merry sports, that no one could catch me unless I allowed myself to be caught, was now to be tested in deadly earnest. Unfortunately just now, when life and liberty were at stake, the most important thing of all was wanting, the fresh and inexhaustible strength that carried me through my boyish exploits, and which now by reason of the terrible mental emotions of the last twenty-four hours, and the excessive physical exertion I had undergone, was well-nigh broken down. To my other sufferings, I was tormented with gnawing hunger and burning thirst. Keeping always in the thickest of the forest, I came upon no spring nor pool of water. The loose soil had long since absorbed the rain of the previous day, and the slight moisture that I was able to suck from the dead leaves only increased my sufferings.