He vanished, with his clerks and the soldiers after him; and then for a moment silence, dreadful and solemn, fell upon the captives. The haggard faces that had strained upon Blazey so long as he was visible, turned each to gaze into his neighbour's eyes; the gates fell to, the locks clashed, the sentries on the wall resumed their eternal tramp. Some men, wrought up to a pitch of mental excitement beyond their strength to conceal, shed tears and sneaked in corners to hide them. The boys--powder-monkeys out of captured ships--broke their ranks and went off whooping to leap-frog; the negroes chattered and blubbered apart; some Americans scowled and shook their fists at the blind doors; some cursed their spokesman for bungling the matter; others walked away mute, quite frozen by long suffering to a dead indifference. Many fell to quarrelling among themselves, and their leaders, including Commodore Miller and Stark, sat together and debated upon the failure of this--their forlorn hope. In the dark disappointment of the hour young Burnham lifted his voice against his motherland. "They have forgotten us!" he said. "We have lived for the States, fought and bled for them; and now we are forgot." "Nay, lad, don't think it," said Miller. "Your heart is low and time drags into a daily eternity here; but remember that it flies faster outside these walls than within them. Our country is busy." "'Tis that cursed Agent," growled Leverett to Knapps. Then he scratched the red-grey wedge of hair upon his chin and turned to Stark. "I asked Blazey as he came in whether he had got our letters and he nodded. He's in communication with both Governments. "Thet 'ere man will hev the devil's toasting-fork in his guts afore he's much older," prophesied Knapps. "He's a traitor." "Please Providence smallpox will clutch the swine; then an honester man may get his billet," said Leverett. Thus they uttered folly and went stormily to their rest; but upon the morning of the next day the Seven, strolling together, listened to reason and formulated a plan of action. Their sick mate, Caleb Carberry, was this day discharged cured from hospital, and he listened to Burnham, who narrated the events of the previous evening. "We've done what we might by fair means. Now it remains for us to trust to our wits and our right arms," said Stark. "The wall men have built, men can climb," declared Burnham. "What say you, Commodore?" Miller gazed upward at the mighty ring of the inner circumvallation, scarlet-dotted with the sentries. "I'm with you--over--or under. At Chatham eighteen brave lads escaped from the prison ship, _Crown Prince_, by cutting through the side of her. Well, oak or granite, 'tis all one." "If we no fly, we burrow berry nice, gentlemen," declared Samuel Cuffee. "Then 'tis our life's work from this hour to get out," said Carberry. "By hook or crook we'll do it. And with a boss like Commodore Miller, I lay the way will come clear."