er, two years younger than
himself, was of a more hopeful demeanour, perhaps realising less fully
the hardships and dangers of their present imprisonment. As they sat
this evening in their lonely chamber, he tried to rally his elder
brother from his melancholy.

"Look not so black, brother; we shall soon be free. Why should we give
up hope?"

The young king answered nothing, and apparently did not heed his
brother's words.

"Nay," persisted the latter, "should we not be glad our lives are spared
us, and that our imprisonment is made easy by the care of good Sir
Robert, our governor?"

Still Edward remained absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, and the
younger lad, thus foiled in his efforts at cheerfulness, became silent
too, and sad, and so continued till a warder entered their chamber with
food, and remained to attend them to bed.

They tasted little that evening, for the shadow of what was to come
seemed already to have crept over their spirits.

"Will Sir Robert come to see us, as is his wont, before we retire to
rest?" inquired Richard of the warder.

"Sir Robert is not now Governor of the Tower," curtly replied the man.

Now indeed they felt themselves utterly friendless, and as they crept to
their bed they clung one to the other, in all the loneliness of despair.

Then the warder took his leave, and they heard the key turn in the lock
behind him, and counted his footsteps as he descended the stairs.

Presently sleep mercifully fell upon their weary spirits, and closed
their weeping eyes with her gentle touch.

At dead of night three men stole up the winding staircase that led to
their chamber, armed, and carrying a light. The leader of these was Sir
James Tyrrel, and his evil-looking companions were the men he had hired
to carry out the cruel order of the king. The key turned in the door,
and they entered the apartment.

It was a sight to touch any heart less hard than those of the three
villains who now witnessed it, to see those two innocent boys sleeping
peacefully in each other's arms, dreaming perhaps of liberty, and
forgetting the sorrow which had left its traces even yet on their closed
eyes. But to Tyrrel and his two assassins, Forest and Deighton, the
spectacle suggested neither pity nor remorse.

At a signal from Tyrrel, who remained outside the room while the deed
was being done, the ruffians snatched the pillows from under the heads
of the sleepers, and ere they could either res