to come to you, Leonard, or to
Francisco, so perhaps you will escape."

"I doubt it," he answered; "besides, to be perfectly frank, if you are
going to die, I would rather die with you."

"Thank you, Leonard," she said gently, "but that will not help either of
us much, will it? What will they do with us? Throw us from the head of
the statue?" and she shuddered.

"That seems to be their amiable intention, but at any rate we need none
of us go through with it alive. How long does your medicine take to
work, Juanna?"

"Half a minute at the outside, I fancy, and sometimes less. Are you sure
that you will take none, Otter? Think; the other end is dreadful."

"No, Shepherdess," said the dwarf, who now in the presence of imminent
danger was as he had been before he sought comfort in the beer-pot,
brave, ready, and collected, "it is not my plan to suffer myself to be
hurled into the pit. Nay, when the time comes I shall spring there of
my own free will, and if I am not killed--and an otter knows how to leap
into a pool--then if I cannot avoid him I will make a fight for it with
that great dweller in the water. Yes, and I go to make ready that with
which I will fight," and he rose and departed to his sleeping-place.

Just then Francisco followed his example, seeking a quiet place in which
to pursue his devotions, and thus Leonard and Juanna were left alone.

For some minutes he watched her as she sat beside him in her white
temple dress, her beautiful face looking stern and sad against the dusky
background of the torchlight, and a great shame and pity filled his
heart. The blood of this girl was on his hands, and he could do nothing
to help her. His selfishness had dragged her into this miserable
enterprise, and now its inevitable end was at hand and he was her
murderer, the murderer of the woman who was all the world to him, and
who had been entrusted to his care with her father's dying breath.

"Forgive me," he said at length with something like a sob, and laying
his hand upon hers.

"What have I to forgive, Leonard?" she replied gently. "Now that it is
all finished and I look back upon the past few months, it seems to me
that it is you who should forgive, for I have often behaved badly to
you."

"Nonsense, Juanna, it was my wicked folly that led you into this, and
now you are about to be cut off in the beginning of your youth and in
the flower of your beauty. I am your murderer, Juanna," and dropping
his voice he