ye, me bhoy," cried the captain. "Ye can't mount,
though, with yer hands behind yer like a prishner.--Lift him on, two of
ye, like a sack."

"That they shan't," I said between my teeth; and feeling now that what
was to como was inevitable, I took a couple of steps to my horse's side.

"Stand!" I said aloud as I raised one foot to the stirrup; and Sandho
stood as rigid as if of bronze, while I made a spring, raised myself up,
and threw my leg over.

"Well done, bhoy!" cried the captain as I sank into the saddle.--"You,
Hooger, take his rein. Unfasten one end from the bit so as to give ye
double length, and ye'd better buckle it to your saddle-bow.--Now look
here, me fine fellow," he continued, addressing me, "ye'll give me none
of your nawnsense; for, look ye, my bhoys are all practised shots with
the rifle. They can bring down a spring-bok going at full speed, so
they can easily bring ye down and yer nag too. There's twenty of them,
and I'm a good shot meself, so ye know what to expect if ye thry to
escape."

I said nothing, for I was thinking with agony about poor Aunt Jenny, who
was now coming up to me, and the captain laughed as he saw her
pain-wrung countenance.

"Good-bye, Val, my boy," said my father slowly; "and bear up like a
man."

That was all, and he turned away.

The next moment Bob was clinging to my arm.

"O Val! O Val! O Val!" he cried in a choking voice, and then he
dropped back, poor boy, for he could say no more.

"Be sharp there and get it done, me bhoy," said the captain. "Ye can
say good-bye to the owld woman; but lave the cat and the dogs till ye
come back."

"Are you going to march at once?" said my father as Aunt Jenny came to
my side, and I gripped my saddle and bent down for her to put her arms
round my neck.

"Sor, ye see that I am," said the captain.

"But you and your men will take something to eat and drink?"

"Something to send them asleep?" said the captain suspiciously. "I'm
thinkin' they can last till we get back to Drak Pass, where there's a
shtore. I'm obleeged to ye all the same.--There, that'll do, owld lady.
I'll make a man of the bhoy, and send him back safe and sound, if some
of the raw recruits of the brutal Saxons don't shoot him."

"Good-bye, then. God bless you and protect you, Val!" said Aunt Jenny,
with a sob, as she loosened her grip of my neck, and I straightened
myself up, feeling my heart swell and the blood bound in my veins, for
while my