anguished mother. His men stood, grinning, awaiting orders, the two
prisoners now fast pinioned.

"Take them away. Let Cornet Drake have charge of them." His smouldering
eye again sought the cowering girl. "I'll stay awhile--to search out
this place. There may be other rebels hidden here." As an afterthought,
he added: "And take this fellow with you." He pointed to Mr. Blood.
"Bestir!"

Mr. Blood started out of his musings. He had been considering that in
his case of instruments there was a lancet with which he might perform
on Captain Hobart a beneficial operation. Beneficial, that is, to
humanity. In any case, the dragoon was obviously plethoric and would
be the better for a blood-letting. The difficulty lay in making the
opportunity. He was beginning to wonder if he could lure the Captain
aside with some tale of hidden treasure, when this untimely interruption
set a term to that interesting speculation.

He sought to temporize.

"Faith it will suit me very well," said he. "For Bridgewater is my
destination, and but that ye detained me I'd have been on my way thither
now."

"Your destination there will be the gaol."

"Ah, bah! Ye're surely joking!"

"There's a gallows for you if you prefer it. It's merely a question of
now or later."

Rude hands seized Mr. Blood, and that precious lancet was in the case on
the table out of reach. He twisted out of the grip of the dragoons, for
he was strong and agile, but they closed with him again immediately, and
bore him down. Pinning him to the ground, they tied his wrists behind
his back, then roughly pulled him to his feet again.

"Take him away," said Hobart shortly, and turned to issue his orders to
the other waiting troopers. "Go search the house, from attic to cellar;
then report to me here."

The soldiers trailed out by the door leading to the interior. Mr. Blood
was thrust by his guards into the courtyard, where Pitt and Baynes
already waited. From the threshold of the hall, he looked back at
Captain Hobart, and his sapphire eyes were blazing. On his lips trembled
a threat of what he would do to Hobart if he should happen to survive
this business. Betimes he remembered that to utter it were probably to
extinguish his chance of living to execute it. For to-day the King's men
were masters in the West, and the West was regarded as enemy country, to
be subjected to the worst horror of war by the victorious side. Here a
captain of horse was for the moment lord of