their way quietly until they stood beneath this window, and waited
until the light here was also put out. Then Harry climbed on to the
shoulders of his companions, which brought his face on a level with the
window. He tapped at it. The king, who had been warned that his friends
would attempt to open a means of escape, at once came to the window, and
threw open the casement.

"Who is there?" he asked, in low tones.

"It is I, Harry Furness, your majesty. I have two trusty friends with
me. We have cut a hole through the postern gate, a cart is waiting
without, and a ship lies ready to receive you on the coast."

"I am ready," the king said. "Thanks, my faithful servant. But have you
brought something to cut the bars?"

"The bars!" Henry exclaimed, aghast. "I did not know that there were
bars!"

"There are, indeed, Master Furness," the king said, "and if you have no
file the enterprise is ruined."

Harry put his hands on the stonework and pulled himself up, and felt the
bars within the window.

"They are too strong for our united strength," he said, in a tone of
deep disappointment. "But methinks it is possible to get between them."
Putting his head between the bars he struggled though, but with great
difficulty. "See, your majesty, I have got through."

"Ay, Master Furness, but you are slighter in figure than I, although you
are changed indeed since first the colonel, your father, presented you
to me at Oxford. However, I will try." The king tried, but in vain. He
was stouter than Harry, although less broadly built, and had none of the
lissomness which enabled the latter to wriggle through the bars. "It is
useless," he said at last. "Providence is against me. It is the will of
God that I should remain here. It may be the decree of Heaven that even
yet I may sit again on the throne of my ancestors. Now go, Master
Furness. It is too late to renew the attempt to-night. Should Charles
Stuart ever reign again over England, he will not forget your faithful
service."

Harry kissed the king's hand, and with a prayer for his welfare he again
made his way through the bars and dropped from the window, by the side
of his companions, the tears streaming down his cheeks with the
disappointment and sorrow he felt at the failure of his enterprise. "It
is all over," he said. "The king cannot force his way through the bars."

Without another word they made their way down to the postern, passed
through it, and replaced the piec