is it?" I demanded, blenching from the touch, "Who
is it? Speak!"

"Hush!" whispered a voice in my ear, "It be only me, master.
Jimmy--little Jim as you was good to. Red Andy don't beat me no more,
he be afeared o' you. Good to me you was, master, an' so's she--took
me to be her page, she 'ave--"

"Whom d'you mean, boy?"

"I mean Her! Her wi' the beautiful, kind eyes an' little feet! Her as
sings! Her they calls 'my lady.' Her! Good t' me she is--an' so's
you, so I be come to ye, master."

"Ha--did she send you?"

"No, I just come to save you from being hung to-morrow like they says
you must."

"And how shall you do this, boy?"

"First wi' this key, master--"

"Stay! Did she give you this key?"

"No, master--I took it!" So, albeit 'twas very dark, the boy very soon
had freed me of my shackles; which done (and all a-quiver with haste)
he seizes my hand and tugs at it:

"Come, master!" he whispered, "This way--this way!" So with his
little, rough hand in mine I suffered him to bring me whither he would
in the dimness, for not a lanthorn burned anywhere, until at last he
halted me at a ladder propped against a bulkhead and mounting before,
bade me follow. Up I climbed forthwith, and so to a narrow trap or
scuttle through which I clambered with no little to-do, and found
myself in a strange place, the roof so low I could barely sit upright
and so strait that I might barely lie out-stretched.

"Lie you here, master!" he whispers, "And for the love o' God don't
speak nor make a sound!" Saying which, he got him back through the
scuttle, closing the trap after him, and I heard the clatter of the
ladder as he removed it.

Hereupon, lying snug in my hiding-place, I presently became aware of a
sweetness that breathed upon the air, a fragrance very faint but vastly
pleasing, and fell a-wondering what this should be. My speculations
were banished by the opening of a door near by and a light appeared, by
which I saw myself lying in a narrow space shut off by a valance or
curtain that yet showed a strip of carpet beyond, and all at once upon
this carpet came a little, buckled shoe. I was yet staring on this in
dumb amaze when a voice spoke softly:

"Are you there, Martin Conisby? Hush, speak low I do command you!"

For answer I dragged myself into the light and stared up at the Lady
Joan Brandon.

"Where am I?" I demanded.

"In my cabin," says she, meeting my scowl with eyes serene and all
untroub