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 them in, saving only for a fitful glimmer of the lantern light that was below them.

"Three steps more," Sir Donald," said the colonel, standing aside on the firm floor of what appeared to be an arched vault. He held the light aloft. "Now, follow me closely," he added; "the passage turns sharply to the left. Be careful of the corner. I knocked my elbow against it just now. Is that the boy behind you?"

"Yes."

"He ought not to have come. Never mind now; let him follow close at your heels. Now halt and look down upon the floor while I hold the light."

The colonel held out his free hand and gripped the older man's arm, directing his gaze into a narrow archway.

"Those are the muskets," he said. "There are two hundred there. I have counted them."

Colin crept up to his grandfather's side, holding him by the skirts of his coat. Looking into the archway he saw the neatly stacked-up guns, with their rusty barrels and locks and rotting stocks.

The colonel drew his companions onward some three or four steps.

"And here are the claymores," said he. "You see the rebels did not get them, after all."

"No, Alan was true," murmured Sir Donald. "I felt sure he would frustrate their delivery. But" He gripped the soldier's arm and asked in a suppressed but eagerly acquisitive tone: "But where was the gold, colonel? Did Neil take it all—every guinea of it?"

The colonel held his lantern full in front of Sir Donald's face, which he regarded with an expression of undisguised contempt.

"The gold," he answered, "was stored in the next vault. And," he added loftily, as he signed to Sir Donald to go past him, "I think you will find it all there still."