ther, and that Captain Davenant's troop would most
likely form part of any army that might march for the north.

By the morning, his clothes had dried upon him, and he then boldly
entered the Royalist camp, mingling with the peasants who were bringing
in provisions for sale. He soon learned where Captain Davenant's troop
was stationed, and made his way thither. He stood watching for some time
until he saw Walter come out of a tent, and he then approached him.
Walter looked up, but did not recognize, in the thin and pallid lad
before him, his former companion.

"Do you want anything?" he asked.

"Don't you know me, Walter?" John said.

Walter started, and gazed at him earnestly.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed at last. "Why, it can't be John!"

"It is what remains of me," John replied, with a faint smile.

"Why, what on earth have you been doing to yourself, John?"

"I have been starving, in there," John said, pointing to the city.

"Come into the tent, John," Walter said, grasping his friend's arm, and
then letting it fall again, with an exclamation of horror at its
thinness. "You needn't be afraid. My father is out--not that that would
make any difference."

John entered the tent, and sat exhausted upon a box. Walter hastened to
get some food, which he set before him, and poured out a large cup of
wine and water, and then stood, looking on in awed silence, while John
devoured his meal.

"I have wondered, a thousand times," he said at last, when John had
finished, "what you were doing in there, or whether you left before the
siege began. How did you get out?"

"I floated down the river to the mouth, beyond your lines, last night;
and then worked round here. I thought I might find you."

"Well, I am glad indeed that you are out," Walter said. "Every time the
mortar sent a shell into the town, I was thinking of you, and wishing
that I could share meals with you, for, of course, we know that you are
suffering horribly in the town."

"Horribly!" John repeated. "You can have no idea what it is, Walter, to
see children suffer. As for men, if it is the will of God, they must bear
it, but it is awful for children. I have had eighteen of them under my
charge through the siege, and to see them getting thinner and weaker,
every day, till the bones look as if they would come through the skin,
and their eyes get bigger and bigger, and their voices weaker, is awful.
At last I could stand it no longer, and I have come ou