"Yes, but not many. And those that get away are seldom heard of more. The forest swallows them up, and after a while their skulls roll about the hills, playthings for wolves, or the deep waters flow over their bones, or they lie in a little heap of ashes at the foot of some Indian torture stake." "Why did you try to escape?" asked Landless. The man gave him another sidelong look. "I tried because I was a fool. I am no longer a fool. I know a better way." "A better way!" "Hush!" The man looked over his shoulder and then whispered, "Will you go with me to-night?" "Go with you! Where?" "To a man I know—a man who gives good advice." "Many can do that, friend." "Ay, but not show the way to profit by it as doth this man." "Who is he?" "A servant even as we are servants,—a learned and godly man, albeit not a follower of the blessed Ludovick. Listen! About the rising of the moon to-night, slip from your cabin and come to the blasted pine on the shore of the inlet. There will be a boat there and I will be in it. We will go to the cabin of the man of whom I speak. He is a cripple, and knowing that he cannot run away, the godless and roistering Malignant who calls himself our master hath given him a hut among the marshes, where he mendeth nets. Come! I may not say more than that it will be worth your while." "If we are caught—" "Our skins pay for us. But the Lord will shut the eyes of the overseers that they see not, and their ears that they hear not, and we will be safely back before the dawn. You will come?" "Yes," said Landless. "I will come." *CHAPTER VI* *THE HUT ON THE MARSH* It was shortly after midnight when the two servants slipped along the inlet, silently and warily, and keeping their boat well under the shore. It was a crazy affair, barely large enough for two, and requiring constant bailing. When they had made half a mile from the quarters, the Muggletonian, who rowed, turned the boat’s head across the inlet, and ran into a very narrow creek that wound in many doubles through the marshes. They entered it, made the first turn, and the broad bosom of the inlet, lit by a low, crimson moon, was as if it had never been. On every side high marsh grass soughed in the night wind,—plains of blackness with the red moon rising from them. The tide was low. So close were the banks of wet, black earth, that they heard the crabs scuttling down them, and Porringer made a jab with his pole at a great sheepshead lying _perdu_ alongside. The water broke before them into spangles, glittering phosphorescent ripples. A school of small fish, disturbed by the oars, rushed past them, leaping from the water with silver flashes. A turtle plunged sullenly. From the grass above came the sleepy cry of marsh hens, and once a great white heron rose like a ghost across their path. It flapped its wings and sailed away with a scream of wrath.