“I have the countersign.  How do you suppose I could have managed to get to you if I hadn’t?  It is ‘Lafayette.’”

“Glory!  Now make all the clatter you can after I challenge.”

They had by this time reached a row of tumble-down stables directly in the rear of the prison, and shut out from the open ground by a decrepit fence, broken here and there by negroes too lazy to pass out into the street to reach the river.  The horsemen had turned into this lane-like highway—­evidently misdirected.  When within a few feet, Jack gave a sudden whack on the board and cried, sternly: 

“Halt!  Who comes there?”

There was a sudden clash of steel as the group halted in a heap, and then a weary voice replied: 

“We have no countersign.  We should have been at our destination long before sundown, but were misdirected ten miles out of our course on the Manchester pike.”

“Very well.  Dismount and come forward one man at a time,” Jack answered, briefly.  This the spokesman did with some alacrity.  As he came up, Dick took the precaution of getting between him and his three companions, and then Jack said:  “I suppose you are all right; but my orders are to arrest all mounted men, detain their horses here in these, the provost stables,” and Jack pointed to Dick’s horse dimly outlined against the sky.  “I will give you a receipt for him, and you can get him back in the morning when you state your case to the provost marshal.—­Stephen,” he turned to Dick, “take that horse and put him with the others.”  He then made out a receipt, handed it to the astonished trooper, and, directing him where to go, carried out the same short shrift with the other three.  The troopers were glad enough to be relieved of their beasts.  This they did not attempt to deny, for they had seen a public-house in the street below, where they could procure much-needed refreshment, relieved as they now were from the necessity of reporting to their commander, whose whereabouts were far down the Rocett road.

“By George, Jack, what a, crafty plotter you are!  Now we have a mount for the party, and I needn’t take poor Warick’s crack stallion.”

“Yes; we’ve doubled the chances of escape by this little stratagem; but we have lost time.  Come.  Have you tied the horses?”

“Yes.  Lead on.”

Over the turfy hillside, now moist and sticky with the heavy dew, they stole, half crouching, half crawling, until they were on a level with the prison basement.  The sentry in front was no longer pacing his beat, and there was no sign of the man in the rear.  In a few minutes the two crawling figures were at the preconcerted places in the wall.  In response to their light taps, a square of brick-work large enough to leave a space for a man to crawl through crumbled upon Jack and Dick, who held their bodies closely pressed against the debris to prevent too loud a noise.  There was no time to wait probabilities of discovery, and an instant later Barney and Jones emerged, panting and half smothered.