oom of the surf or the roar of cannon, and Edmonson stepped in and
seated himself opposite Archdale.

"Two captains in one boat!" she heard a soldier remonstrate.

"Nonsense! we're full. Shove off instantly, you laggards. Every minute
tells," said the newcomer in a hoarse undertone.

Elizabeth sprang forward. "No, no," she cried impetuously, forgetting
everything but the terror.

But the calling of the names was going on again, and her voice was
unheard, except by a few who stood near her. Before she could make her
way up to the General, the boat pulled by the vigorous strokes of the
men who had been taunted as laggards, had shot out of sight. "Oh! bring
them back, bring back that last boat," she implored Pepperell in such
distress that he, knowing her a woman not given to idle fears, felt a
sense of impending evil as he answered:

"My dear, I cannot. No boat is sure of meeting it in the dark, and to
call would endanger the expedition."

There was no use in explaining now. She would have occasion enough to do
it sometime, she feared; and then it would be useless. To-night she
could say nothing. All these days she had dreaded what might come, for
it did not seem to her that Captain Archdale took any care at all.
Still, in the camp, out of general action, and surrounded by others,
there had been comparative safety.

Now the hour, the place, and the purpose had met. Through the darkness
Stephen Archdale was going to his doom.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A WOUNDED MAN.

The General sent Elizabeth away very kindly. She sent the weary Nancy to
bed and went back to the hospital. But anxiety mastered her so that she
could not keep her hands from trembling or her voice from faltering when
there was most need for steadiness.

"You are exhausted, Mistress Royal, you ought not to be here," said one
of the surgeons sternly. "Go and rest."

"Oh, please let me stay," she pleaded with a humility so new that he
looked at her with curiosity.

"Hush!" said his assistant making an excuse to draw him aside. "Don't
you know she's been watching the men set out for the Fort?"

Elizabeth found words of comfort for a soldier who was mourning because
his wife would have no one to look after her, if he died. "I will help
her," she said. And then, by the light of the flaring candle, she wrote
down the woman's address. She repeated verses of Scripture for some who
asked her for them, and found a little steadiness of voice in doing it.
Bu