Being safely out-of-doors, our next care was to put distance between us and the threatening trap from which we had escaped. Taking the readiest way that offered we hurried eastward through the burned district, avoiding the barracks on one hand and the water-front on the other, having no particular destination in view at first, and no plan other than the simple one of losing ourselves as completely and speedily as possible. In this dodging flight, on which we ran as the wicked do,--with no man pursuing,--the sergeant was the file-leader. Having been in the town for near two months, he knew its byways, and though the short winter day was drawing on to its early dusk, he seemed never to be at fault in our various windings and turnings. We were a good distance from the fort, and had borne eastward and northward until the houses were growing far apart and scattering, when Champe led the way to the right and we pressed on until we could hear the waters of the East River lapping coldly on the shingle. By this time the stars were coming out, and a thin sickle of a moon in its first quarter hung in the western sky. In the chill, gray half-light a house, isolated by its situation, and still farther set apart from its neighbors by a high-fenced garden, loomed darkly before us, its windows shuttered and its chimney smokeless. “Here is our burrow,” announced the sergeant, opening the garden gate to admit us. Then, as I reeled rather than walked into the enclosure: “Is Mr. Askew’s love pat still fretting you, Captain?” I said it was, and made light of it, though my head was buzzing like a hive of angry bees. I had no notion of where Champe was taking me; and, what with the pain and the desire to be warmed and at ease, I was not curious enough to inquire. Quite as if he were the owner of the house, Champe strode to the door, fitted a key in the lock, clicked it and bade me enter. But since the room to which the door gave ingress was as dark as a pocket, I let him show me the way. The interior was cold and discomforting, with the dead chill which goes with closed doors and windows and long-extinguished fires; and when the sergeant had shut and locked the door we were in darkness thick enough to be cut with a knife. “Hold hard for a minute until I make a light, Captain Dick,” said the voice of my companion, muffled, as it seemed to me, by the tangible darkness. Then came the snicking of flint upon steel, a spark, a dull glow in the tinder, and, a little later, a flame for a candle which, when it was lighted, showed us a scantily furnished living-room in some disorder, a table with dishes and the remainder of a meal standing in the middle of the floor, and a hearth cold, but with the kindlings laid ready for lighting.