their souls," murmured the unknown.

"That's as He likes," said Martin, "and no affair of mine; I had only to
do with their bodies and--" At this moment Foy groaned, sat up and asked
for something to drink.

Martin gave him water from the pitcher.

"Where am I?" he asked, and he told him.

"Martin, old fellow," said Foy in an uncertain voice, "we are in a very
bad way, but as we have lived through this"--here his characteristic
hopefulness asserted itself--"I believe, I believe that we shall live
through the rest."

"Yes, young sir," echoed the thin, faint notes out of the darkness
beyond the bars, "I believe, too, that you will live through the rest,
and I am praying that it may be so."

"Who is that?" asked Foy drowsily.

"Another prisoner," answered Martin.

"A prisoner who will soon be free," murmured the voice again through the
blackness, for by now night had fallen, and no light came from the hole
above.

Then Foy fell into sleep or stupor, and there was silence for a long
while, until they heard the bolts and bars of the door of the dungeon
creaking, and the glint of a lantern appeared floating on the gloom.
Several men tramped down the narrow gangway, and one of them, unlocking
their cage, entered, filled the jug of water from a leathern jack, and
threw down some loaves of black bread and pieces of stockfish, as food
is thrown to dogs. Having examined the pair of them he grunted and went
away, little knowing how near he had been to death, for the heart of
Martin was mad. But he let him go. Then the door of the next cell was
opened, and a man said, "Come out. It is time."

"It is time and I am ready," answered the thin voice. "Good-bye,
friends, God be with you."

"Good-bye, lady," answered Martin; "may you soon be with God." Then he
added, by an afterthought, "What is your name? I should like to know."

"Mary," she replied, and began to sing a hymn, and so, still singing the
hymn, she passed away to her death. They never saw her face, they never
learned who she might be, this poor girl who was but an item among the
countless victims of perhaps the most hideous tyranny that the world
has ever known--one of Alva's slaughtered sixty thousand. But many years
afterwards, when Foy was a rich man in a freer land, he built a church
and named it Mary's kirk.

The long night wore away in silence, broken only by the groans and
prayers of prisoners in dens upon the same floor, or with the solemn
rhythm of h