The boy gulped. Gavin bent his own head toward the cat andseemed about to resume his incantation. With a galvanic jump,the youth made answer:

"Came by the path. Watched till the dawg run out in the roadto bark at suthin'. This man," with a jerk of his head towardhis captor, "this man went to the road after him. I cut acrossthe grass, yonder, and got in. They come back. I hid me inthere."

"H'm! Why didn't you come by way of the tunnel, like theother Caesars?"

"Pop tol me not to. Sent me ahead. Said mebbe they moughtn'tgit inside here if the doors was locked early. Tol' me to hide mein the house an' let 'em in, late, ef they-all couldn't git inno earlier, or ef they couldn't cotch one of the two cussesoutside the house."

"Good strategy!" approved Brice. "That explains why theyhaven't rushed us, Standish. They came here in force, andmost likely (if they've gotten out of the enclosure, yet)they've surrounded the house, waiting for you or Hade to comein or go out. If that doesn't work, they plan to wait tillyou're asleep, and then get in, by this gallant youngster'shelp, and cut your throat at their leisure and loot the houseand take a good leisurely hunt for the treasure. It calls formore sense than I thought they had .... How did they find thetunnel?" he continued, to the prisoner.

"They been a-huntin' fer it, nigh onto one-half of a decade,"sulkily returned the child. "Pop done found it, yest'dy.Stepped into it, he did, a walkin' past."

"The rumor of that tunnel has been hereabout for over acentury," explained Brice, to the Standishes. "Just as thetreasure-rumors have. I heard of it when I always was a kid. TheCaesars must have heard it, a thousand times. But, till thisgame started, there was no impetus to look for it, of course.The tunnel is supposed to have been dug just after thatSeminole warparty cut off the refugees in the path. By theway, Miss Standish, I didn't mention it while we were stillthere, but the mangrove-swamp is supposed to be haunted by theghosts of those killed settlers."