ver did but once. Part of her
hair had straggled down, and hung in a sort of ringlet by her face. It
was pale, but clear and bright-looking, and there was a thin streak
of blood across her forehead that showed as she came underneath the
lamp-light from the landing above.

I looked over at Moran. He and Wall sat in a corner, looking as grim
and savage as possible, while his deadly black eyes had a kind of gloomy
fire in them that made him look like a wild beast in a cage.

Mr. Knightley was a man that always had the first word in everything,
and generally the best of an argument--putting down anybody who differed
from him in a quiet, superior sort of way.

He began now. 'Well, my men, I have come down to surrender, and I'm
sorry to be obliged to do so. But we have fired our last cartridge--the
doctor thought we had a thousand left--in which case, I may as well tell
you, you'd never have had this pleasure. Captain Starlight, I surrender
my sword--or should do so if I had one. We trust to receive honourable
treatment at your hands.'

'I'm sure the Captain will never permit any harm to come to me,' says
Mrs. Knightley, with a look in her eyes that, in spite of herself, said
a deal more than words. 'Why, I danced "vis-a-vis" to him in a quadrille
at the Turon ball.'

'I shall never forget the honour,' says Starlight, walking forward and
bowing low. 'Permit me to offer you a chair, madam; you look faint.'

As he did so she sank down in it, and really looked as if she would
faint away. It wouldn't have been much wonder if she had after what
she'd gone through that night.

Then Mr. Knightley began again. He wanted to know how he stood. He
didn't like the look of Moran and Wall--they were a deal too quiet for
him, and he could read men's faces like a book. The other two prisoners
were the German Dr. Schiller--a plucky old chap, who'd been a rebel and
a conspirator and I don't know what all in his own country. He'd seen
too much of that kind of thing to trouble himself over much about a
trifle of this kind. The old woman was a family servant, who had been
with them for years and years. She was a kind of worshipper of theirs,
and was ready to live or die with her mistress.

Chapter 45

So Mr. Knightley stood up and faced them all like a man. He was one
of those chaps that makes up their mind pretty quick about the sort of
people they've got to deal with, and if there's anything to be said
or done lets 'em have