“Gone with Lois, hey? Then whose woolly pate is that?” responded a drunken brute, who, rising in his stirrups, fired a shot toward the garret window from which Lois in an unguarded moment had thrust her head. Others had seen her, too, and as this gave the lie to the story that Lois was gone, the maddened crowd pressed against the house, declaring their intention to search it and hang any runaway they might find secreted here. It never occurred to them that the runaway could have been with Maude in Lois’s clothes; but the young man who met the two lone women saw the ruse at once, and influenced by Maude’s beauty and the remembrance of the sweet “Good evening, Mark,” with which she had greeted him as he passed, he made his way to Charlie’s side and whispered, “If you know where your sister has gone, and can warn her, do so at once. Tell her if she is tolerably safe to stay there and not return here to-night.” Charlie needed no second bidding, and stealing from the rear of the house he was soon speeding up the mountain path in the direction of the cave. Meanwhile the search in Paul Haverill’s house went on. Closets were thrown open; beds were torn to pieces; cellars were ransacked, and old Lois was dragged from the ash-house, where she had taken refuge, while, worse than all, Tom Carleton’s boots were found in the chamber where he had dressed so hurriedly, and the sight of these maddened the excited crowd, which, failing of finding their victim, began to clamor for Paul Haverill’s blood. But Paul kept them at bay. In the rear of the house was a small, dark room, to which there was but one entrance, and that a steep narrow stairway. Here Paul Haverill took refuge, and standing at the head of the stairs threatened to shoot the first man who should attempt to come up. They had not yet reached that state when they counted their lives as nothing, and so amid yells and oaths, and riding up and down the road, and drinking the fine grape wines with which the cellar was stocked, the hours of the short summer night wore on until just as the dawn was breaking in the east, the marauders put the finishing touch to their night’s debauch by setting fire to the house, and then starting in a body up the mountain side in the direction of the cave. CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE CAVE. The cave was dry and comparatively comfortable, and Tom felt as he entered it almost like going home. Will Mather had spent a day and a night there, while better than all, Maude De Vere was with him, her bright eyes shining upon him through the darkness, and her hands touching his as she groped around for the candle her uncle had said was on a shelf in the rock.