t rising like a gale of wind. With
regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect of an internecine strife
within the walls began to daunt me.

Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and prepared
against the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his
face. He took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, and turned
to us with an air of some excitement.

"There is one point that we must know," said he. "Are they going to
butcher the lot of us, or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for him, or
fire at you for your own _beaux yeux_?"

"They took me for him, for certain," I replied. "I am near as tall, and my
head is fair."

"I am going to make sure," returned Northmour; and he stepped up to the
window, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietly
affronting death, for half a minute.

Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but I
had the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.

"Yes," said Northmour, turning coolly from the window, "it's only
Huddlestone they want."

"Oh, Mr. Northmour!" cried Clara; but found no more to add; the temerity
she had just witnessed seeming beyond, the reach of words.

He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumph in
his eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his life,
merely to attract Clara's notice, and depose me from my position as the
hero of the hour. He snapped his fingers.

"The fire is only beginning," said he. "When they warm up to their work,
they won't be so particular."

A voice was now heard hailing us from the entrance. From the window we
could see the figure of a man in the moonlight; he stood motionless, his
face uplifted to ours, and a rag of something white on his extended arm;
and as we looked right down upon him, though he was a good many yards
distant on the links, we could see the moonlight glitter on his eyes.

He opened his lips again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key so
loud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion, and as
far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that had
already shouted, _"Traditore!"_ through the shutters of the dining-room;
this time it made a complete and clear statement. If the traitor
"Oddlestone" were given up, all others should be spared; if not, no one
should escape to tell the tale.

"Well, Huddlestone, what do you say to that?" asked Northmou