light of their victim. Leave everything as we found it, and follow me
without delay."

He was all anxiety now to get his brother from the shadow of this
hideous place. The whiteness of Raymond's face, the hollowness of his
eyes, the lines of suffering traced upon his brow in a few short days,
all told a tale only too easily read.

The rough fellows treated him tenderly as they might have treated a
little child. They felt that he had been through some ordeal from which
they themselves would have shrunk with a terror they would have been
ashamed to admit; and that despite the youth's fragile frame and
ethereal face that looked little like that of a mailed warrior, a hero's
heart beat in his breast, and he had the spirit to do and to dare what
they themselves might have quailed from and fled before.

The transit through the narrow tunnel presented no real difficulty, and
soon the sullen waters of the moat were troubled by the silent passage
of seven instead of six swimmers. The shock of the cold plunge revived
Raymond; and the sense of space above him, the star-spangled sky
overhead, the free sweet air around him, even the unfettered use of his
weakened limbs, as he swam with his brother's strong supporting arm
about him, acted upon him like a tonic. He hardly knew whether or not it
was a dream; whether he were in the body or out of the body; whether he
should awake to find himself in his gloomy cell, or under the cruel
hands of his foes in that dread chamber he had visited once before.

He knew not, and at that moment he cared not. Gaston's arm was about
him, Gaston's voice was in his ear. Whatever came upon him later could
not destroy the bliss of the present moment.

A score of eager hands were outstretched to lift the light frame from
Gaston's arm as the brothers drew to the edge of the moat. It was no
time to speak, no time to ask or answer questions. At any moment some
unguarded movement or some crashing of the boughs underfoot might awaken
the suspicions of those within the walls. It was enough that the secret
expedition had been crowned with success -- that the captive was now
released and in their own hands.

Raymond was almost fainting now with excitement and fatigue, but
Gaston's muscles seemed as if made of iron. Though the past days had
been for him days of great anxiety and fatigue, though he had scarce
eaten or slept since the rapid march upon the besieging army around St.
Jean d'Angely, he seemed to k