therefore, despair of your lives; and though I cannot plead for myself I
will for you."

Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of an officer, who gave
orders to the guard to conduct the prisoners to the _Campo_ outside the
town.

Tom rejoined Archy Gordon and they followed the colonel, who was marched
out with Captain Crowhurst as his companion. They were joined by
several priests with crucifixes in their hands, who, addressing the
prisoners as they walked alongside them, offered to afford them the
consolations of their religion.

"We want none of their mummery," exclaimed Captain Crowhurst, in a tone
of indignant contempt. "Do tell the fellows, colonel, to let us alone."

The colonel, instead of interpreting this speech, mildly addressed the
priests, and assured them that he and his companions did not require
their services, as they differed in creed. The friars now came to Tom
and Archy, but soon finding that they did not understand a word they
said they fell back to those in the rear. The master of the sloop and
the mates spoke much in the same tone as Captain Crowhurst had done, and
the priests observing that they were heretics devoted their attention to
their own countrymen. Two of the priests, more persevering than the
rest, returned again to the colonel; he motioned them aside with the
same courteousness as before. Still they addressed him.

"My friends," he said at length, "I give you full credit for the honesty
of your intentions, but as I have lived so I hope to die, protesting
against the false system and erroneous doctrines in which you appear to
believe. I have no faith in them, and, therefore, you only interrupt a
person who would ask strength from One in whose presence he is about
shortly to appear, that he may go through the severe trial he is called
upon to endure."

The calm and dignified manner of the brave colonel rebuked the officious
priests, and they returned without venturing to utter any of the
contemptuous remarks which they had bestowed on his less polished
fellow-sufferers.

Crowds collected in the streets to see the mournful procession pass:
most of the Englishmen walked boldly on, with heads erect and undismayed
countenances; many of them, indeed, scarcely believed that the
government would venture to put them to death; the natives, on the
contrary, fully aware of the sanguinary disposition of their countrymen,
expected no mercy, but marched on with trembling knee