d treat you as one."

For answer, Roy threw all his strength into one desperate effort,
wrenched his head round so that it was clear of the hand pressed upon
it, and shrieked out the one word--

"Judas!"

The word seemed to cut into the wretched traitor's brain; and, raising
the boy's sword, he struck at him; but the blade glanced from the
perfectly tempered helmet, and the next moment one who seemed to be an
officer interposed.

"Prisoners are not treated like that, sir," he said, sternly. "Which
way now?"

"This," said the secretary; and he led the way along the corridor,
towards the door opening upon the court-yard.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A DARK NIGHT'S DEEDS.

At that moment, when Roy would have surrendered his life to have rung
out an alarm, the signal of danger, treachery, and hopeless disaster
rang out in the form of a shot from the battlements overhead, and this
was followed by another and another. But as the prisoner was hurried
into the open air, armed men seemed to be gliding out of the darkness on
all sides, their source, as far as he could make out in those agitated
moments, being the bases of the towers. Then, as the trumpet rang out,
fighting began all around the castle at once, not from the outside, but
from within. Men had evidently crept silently up to the four towers,
and gathered there from the corridors to which they had been admitted;
and at the sound of the trumpet, a simultaneous attack was made, which,
coming from the unguarded rear, and in tremendous, constantly increasing
force, could not fail of being successful.

Roy stood there in the midst of his mother's once pleasant garden, with
the stars glinting over his head, and guarded by half-a-dozen troopers,
listening to the clash of steel, and the firing going on all round where
the little garrison made desperate efforts to maintain themselves. But
they could not even grow stronger by joining, for the occupants of each
tower were isolated and driven back as they tried to communicate with
their officers, who, at the first alarm, tried to lead the men in the
guard-room to the gathering point selected in case of emergency. Ben
had just lit his lantern, expecting the coming of Roy at twelve, when
the first shot came; and, shouting an alarm, he drew his sword to dash
out, but only to be hurled back, the door-way of the guard-room being
blocked by men; while, when the occupants of the chambers beneath the
platforms of each tower