When I awakened the sun was riding high in the heavens, and Alec, sitting near the opening of the cave just behind the clump of bushes, was keeping careful watch. “Do not reproach yourself for having slept while there was an opportunity,” he said, when I would have made excuses for taking my ease so long, leaving to him all the labor. “When the moment comes that we make a dash for liberty, it may be necessary to keep our eyes open many hours on a stretch, and by dividing the watches, if it so be we have the inclination, one or the other can sleep all the time.” It was good proof that the dear lad needed rest when, having once stretched out at full length, his eyes closed almost immediately in slumber, and during at least an hour I do not believe he so much as moved hand or foot. At the end of that time I ceased to watch my sleeping comrade, for the tramp of footsteps and the hum of voices could be heard just outside the cave, and I knew beyond a peradventure that the Britishers were searching for us. Unless they were doing their work most carelessly, it did not seem possible they could pass the aperture without discovering it, for of a verity, if I had been searching for a fugitive, I would have taken good care to know what might be under such an overhanging rock as marked the entrance to our place of refuge. For an instant there came into my mind the thought that it was necessary Alec be awakened in case the men came upon us, and I stretched forth my hand to touch him; but drew it back immediately when the sound of voices told that they had halted directly in front of where I sat, not more than ten paces away. [Illustration: “I STRETCHED FORTH MY HAND TO TOUCH HIM.”] CHAPTER VIII. A CLOSE SHAVE. I needed no evidence to convince me that the Britishers would make every effort to capture us. It was the one thing necessary for them to do, even though they could not hope to keep secret the fact of their encampment here on the North Foreland. Whoever was in command of the troops must have known beyond a peradventure that the Americans living on the opposite shore of the lake had certain knowledge regarding the gathering of soldiers at this point, for the camp was already established on that winter’s afternoon when Alec and I ran blindly into the hands of the redcoats. From what we heard while held as prisoners so many weeks previous, my comrade and I knew that a movement was contemplated before the ice broke up. Why it had been delayed we might never learn to a certainty, but it seemed positive to me at this moment--for when danger was so imminent the veriest trifles passed through my brain with lightning-like rapidity--that instead of abandoning the manœuvre it had simply been delayed, in which case secrecy was even more necessary now than when we came so unwittingly upon the enemy.