on,
wondering at the silence, and listening in vain for the noise and outcry
which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him, with his hand in
hers, sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace. She was worn, and
altered, full of grief, and heavy-hearted; but the same to him.

'Mother,' he said, after a long silence: 'how long,--how many days and
nights,--shall I be kept here?'

'Not many, dear. I hope not many.'

'You hope! Ay, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I hope, but
they don't mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares for Grip?'

The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said 'Nobody,' as
plainly as a croak could speak.

'Who cares for Grip, except you and me?' said Barnaby, smoothing the
bird's rumpled feathers with his hand. 'He never speaks in this place;
he never says a word in jail; he sits and mopes all day in his dark
corner, dozing sometimes, and sometimes looking at the light that creeps
in through the bars, and shines in his bright eye as if a spark from
those great fires had fallen into the room and was burning yet. But who
cares for Grip?'

The raven croaked again--Nobody.

'And by the way,' said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird, and
laying it upon his mother's arm, as he looked eagerly in her face; 'if
they kill me--they may: I heard it said they would--what will become of
Grip when I am dead?'

The sound of the word, or the current of his own thoughts, suggested to
Grip his old phrase 'Never say die!' But he stopped short in the middle
of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into a faint croak, as if he
lacked the heart to get through the shortest sentence.

'Will they take HIS life as well as mine?' said Barnaby. 'I wish they
would. If you and I and he could die together, there would be none to
feel sorry, or to grieve for us. But do what they will, I don't fear
them, mother!'

'They will not harm you,' she said, her tears choking her utterance.
'They never will harm you, when they know all. I am sure they never
will.'

'Oh! Don't be too sure of that,' cried Barnaby, with a strange pleasure
in the belief that she was self-deceived, and in his own sagacity. 'They
have marked me from the first. I heard them say so to each other when
they brought me to this place last night; and I believe them. Don't you
cry for me. They said that I was bold, and so I am, and so I will be.
You may think that I am silly, but I can die as well as another.--I have
done no ha