Then Merrylips knew that on the day when she had seen Captain Brooke come from the still-house, he had been out by the passage to spy upon the enemy. She wondered that she had been so stupid as not to have guessed as much. Through the damp cellar, where the long, slimy tracks of snails gleamed on the walls, they reached the low entrance of the buried passage. The walls were all of stone that sweated with moisture, and the roof was so low that Captain Brooke had to stoop as he went. Underfoot the ground was uneven. More than once Merrylips stumbled as she hurried to keep up with the captain's strides. Every moment, too, she found it harder to draw breath. Not only was she panting with the haste that she must make, but the air seemed lifeless in the passage, and in the dark lantern the candle burned blue and feeble. "Journey's end, boys!" Captain Brooke spoke at last, as it seemed to her from a great distance. Over his shoulder she saw a patch of dark sky, where stars were twinkling. Across the patch ran inky black lines that were leafless stalks of bushes. The fresh air of the upper world came keen and sweet to her nostrils. "Below you lieth the mere, upon the north of the rebel lines. Take your bearings by it, Rupert," said the captain. "Steer your course as Captain Norris bade, and so, good speed unto you both!" For a moment Rupert and Merrylips stood in the low opening, which was screened by hazel bushes and a bit of ivy-covered stonework. In the passage that they had just left they watched the light of the captain's lantern till they could no longer see it in the darkness. "So we're quit of Monksfield!" Merrylips said then, and as she thought of her last hours in the garrison, she spoke in a happy voice. "You're rejoiced, eh?" Rupert answered harshly. "Truth, I'm not! The best friend I have I left yonder, old Claus! And I'll not be near him now, in the last fight." "Last fight--" echoed Merrylips. "Dost thou not understand, little fool?" whispered Rupert. "The rebels will attack to-morrow, and we're now so weak that it well may be--Dost thou not see? 'Tis to save thy life the captain sendeth thee away, and for that thou art glad to leave him, Tibbott Venner, thou little coward!" CHAPTER XXIII OUTSIDE KING'S SLYNTON All that night Merrylips and Rupert groped their way by the paths that Captain Norris had bidden them take. At dawn they found a hiding-place at the edge of a beech wood on a low hill, and there they spent the day. Sometimes they slept, and sometimes they ate and drank, and sometimes from their hilltop they scanned the country round them. Near at hand, in the open fields, they saw hinds that went about their work, and in the distance twice, to their alarm, they saw squads of mounted men that sped along an unseen road. "Will those be Roundheads?" Merrylips asked.