y his heart out. But he yielded to neither impulse; he
kept a brave heart, knowing that this would be his last night in prison,
and that in a few hours' time he would hear his name called out of the
sky, and would dash through the window to liberty and the last wild
flight. This thought gave him courage, and he kept all his energy for
the great effort.

Gradually, once more, the sunlight faded, and the darkness began to
creep over the land. Never before had the shadows under the elms looked
so fantastic, nor the bushes in the field beyond assumed such sinister
shapes. The Empty House was being gradually invested; the enemy was
masquerading already under cover of these very shadows.

Very soon, he felt, the attack would begin, and he must be ready to act.

The night came down at last with a strange suddenness, and with it the
warning of the governess came back to him; he thought quakingly of the
stricken children who had been caught and deprived of their wings; and
then he pulled out his long red feathers and tried their strength, and
gained thus fresh confidence in their power to save him when the time
came.

CHAPTER XVII

OFF!

With the full darkness a whole army of horrors crept nearer. He felt
sure of this, though he could actually see nothing. The house was
surrounded, the courtyard crowded. Outside, on the stairs, in the other
rooms, even on the roof itself, waited dreadful things ready to catch
him, to tear off his wings, to make him prisoner for ever and ever.

The possibility that something had happened to the governess now became
a probability. Imperceptibly the change was wrought; he could not say
how or when exactly; but he now felt almost certain that the effort to
keep her out of the way had succeeded. If this were true, the boy's only
hope lay in his wings, and he pulled them out to their full length and
kissed them passionately, speaking to the strong red feathers as if they
were living little persons.

"You must save me! You will save me, won't you?" he cried in his
anguish. And every time he did this and looked at them he gained fresh
hope and courage.

The problem _where he was to fly to_ had not yet insisted on a solution,
though it lay always at the back of his mind; for the final flight of
escape without a guide had never been even a possibility before.

Lying there alone in the darkness, waiting for the sound of the voice so
longed-for, he found his thoughts turning again to the