to die?"

He hesitated. "I don't know, dear. I hope to meet it like a man."

"Tell me what you truly think. Is there any hope for us at all?"

Once more he paused, reflecting whether or no he should speak the truth.
Finally he decided to do so.

"I can see none, Jess. If we are not drowned we are sure to be shot.
They will wait about the bank till morning, and for their own sakes they
will not dare to let us live."

He did not know that all which was left of two of them would indeed wait
for many a long year, while the third had fled aghast.

"Jess, dear," he went on, "it is of no good to tell lies. Our lives may
end any minute. Humanly speaking, they must end before the sun is up."

The words were awful enough--if the reader can by an effort of
imagination throw himself for a moment into the position of these two,
he will understand how awful.

It is a dreadful thing, when in the flow of health and youth, suddenly
to be placed face to face with the certainty of violent death, and to
know that in a few more minutes your course will have been run, and that
you will have commenced to explore a future, which may prove to be even
worse, because more enduring, than the life you are now quitting in
agony. It is a dreadful thing, as any who have ever stood in such
a peril can testify, and John felt his heart sink within him at
the thought of it--for Death is very strong. But there is one thing
stronger, a woman's perfect love, against which Death himself cannot
prevail. And so it came to pass that now as he fixed his cold gaze upon
Jess's eyes they answered him with a strange unearthly light. She feared
not Death, so that she might meet him with her beloved. Death was her
hope and opportunity. Here she had nothing; there she might have all.
The fetters had fallen from her, struck off by an overmastering hand.
Her duty was satisfied, her trust fulfilled, and she was free--free to
die with her beloved. Ay! her love was indeed a love deeper than the
grave; and now it rose in eager strength, standing expectant upon the
earth, ready, when dissolution had lent it wings, to soar to its own
predestined star.

"You are sure, John?" she asked again.

"Yes, dear, yes. Why do you force me to repeat it? I can see no hope."

Her arms were round his neck, her soft curls rested on his cheek, and
the breath from her lips played upon his brow. Indeed it was only by
speaking into each other's ears that conversation was possible, owin