When the glare from a great lamp above the main entrance was seen across the snow, three men huddled together in an empty sentry-box near the gates, and three struck strongly forward into the south-east. They held a steady course, and walked in Indian file, with the storm on their left sides. Sam Cuffee sobbed and screamed. "Poor tings, dey got der marching orders! I nebber see Marse Stark any more. I wish I born dead!" "Shut your mouth, you black scorpion," said Burnham savagely. His heart was with his friends, and now he smarted to think that he had turned. If they lived, they would never respect him more. So he believed. He had always entertained a lively jealousy where Stark was concerned. He knew that his messmate was a better man than himself and, eaten by envy, could not pardon his superiority. Now in his heart there sprang a base and fleeting hope that Stark had departed to die. "I'se no scorpion," answered Cuffee. "I'se only berry dam miserable nigger, sar." "Be silent! Do you want the men in the guardhouse to hear us? We're to give Commodore Miller as much law as we dare without getting ourselves frostbitten. Then we can ring the bell and sneak back to kennel--like the hounds we are." "To the cachot," said Carberry. "I kinder guess we'll sleep on granite to-night. Snow's softer and warmer, after all's said. But if we sleep here, you bet we shan't wake no more." "They'll have a pretty down on us now," answered Burnham. "We were fools not to go and die with the others." "De cachot--wid de snow coming in to bury us froo de naked windows! Oh, I wish I dead and in hell--it warm dar. I no care for twenty million debbils so long as dey take me into de warm place." "You'll be warm enough to-morrow. They'll flog us for this when we refuse to say anything about the others," returned William Burnham. "Flogging's better'n dying. Durn the silly monkeys--they might just as well have cut their throats as go," declared Carberry. "I dare say every doodle of 'em's dead by now. Miller's a loss to the country for sartain." In silence they waited another minute; then Burnham addressed Sam Cuffee. "Ring the great bell, nigger; I can't lift my hand to it." Soon the three were back again within the prison walls, and as Carberry had expected, a cachot opened frozen jaws for them. Untold misery they endured, although a soldier at his own risk fetched them a bundle of straw to spread between their bodies and the stones. Commandant Cottrell himself directed the punishment. "As for the others," he said, "we are well quit of the troublesome rascals. They'll be out of further mischief before dawn. Nothing could live in this, for Satan and all his angels are loose to-night." CHAPTER XII THE SNOWSTORM