“Sorra a word did I know about enlistin’, or bounty, or anything else, for four-and-twenty hours afther the mischief was done. Is it money that ’ud recompinse a man for sittin’ here in the mud, waitin’ to be blown to bits by a whole plantation full of soldiers, as I am here, God help me? Is it money you say? Faith, I’ve enough to take me back to Cork twice over. What more do I want? And I offered the half of it to the captain, or gineral, or whatever he was, to lave me go, when I found what I’d done; but he wouldn’t hearken to me.” Zeke rolled over to take a glance through the hedge. “Tell me some more about that fellow you were tryin’ to find,” he said, with his gaze fixed on the distant sentry. “What’ll happen now that you haven’t found him?” “If he remains unknown until midsummer-day next, the estate goes to some distant cousins who live convanient to it.” “And he can’t touch it after that, s’posin’ he should turn up?” “The law of adverse possession is twinty years, and only five of ’em have passed. No; he’d have a claim these fifteen years yet. But rest aisy. He’ll never be heard of.” “And you wrote and told ’em in Ireland that he couldn’t be found?” “That I did--or--Wait now! What I wrote was that he was in the army, and I was afther searching for him there. Sure, whin I got to New York, what with the fri’nds and the drink and--and this foine soldiering of moine, I niver wrote at all. It’s God’s mercy I didn’t lose me papers on top of it all, or it would be if I was likely ever to git out of this aloive.” Zeke lay silent and motionless for a time, watching the prospect through this hole in the hedge. “Hungry, Irish?” he asked at last, with laconic abruptness. “I’ve a twist on me like the County Kerry in a famine year.” “Well, then, double yourself up and follow me when I give the word. I’ll bet there’s something to eat in that house. Give me your gun. We’ll put them through first. That’s it. Now, then, when that fellow’s on t’other side of the house. _Now!_” With lizard-like swiftness, Zeke made his way through the aperture, and, bending almost double, darted across the wet sward toward the house. Linsky followed him, doubting not that the adventure led to certain death, but hoping that there would be breakfast first. CHAPTER III--LINSKY’S BRIEF MILITARY CAREER. Zeke, though gliding over the slippery ground with all the speed at his command, had kept a watch on the further corner of the house. He straightened himself now against the angle of the projecting, weather-beaten chimney, and drew a long breath. “He didn’t see us,” he whispered reassuringly to Linsky, who had also drawn up as flatly as possible against the side of the house. “Glory be to God!” the recruit ejaculated.