f carrying something. You, Miss Mary, give me that casket,
and put on your head this basket of bread. Now, that's right: do you
feel you have strength?"

"Yes," said the queen.

"Yes," said Mary Seyton.

"Then follow me."

The child went on his way, and after a few steps the fugitives found
themselves in a kind of antechamber to the great hall, from which
proceeded noise and light. Several servants were occupied there with
different duties; not one paid attention to them, and that a little
reassured the queen. Besides, there was no longer any drawing back:
Little Douglas had just entered the great hall.

The guests, seated on both sides of a long table ranged according to the
rank of those assembled at it, were beginning dessert, and consequently
had reached the gayest moment of the repast. Moreover, the hall was so
large that the lamps and candles which lighted it, multiplied as
they were, left in the most favourable half-light both sides of the
apartment, in which fifteen or twenty servants were coming and going.
The queen and Mary Seyton mingled with this crowd, which was too much
occupied to notice them, and without stopping, without slackening,
without looking back, they crossed the whole length of the hall, reached
the other door, and found themselves in the vestibule corresponding to
the one they had passed through on coming in. The queen set down her jug
there, Mary Seyton her basket, and both, still led by the child, entered
a corridor at the end of which they found themselves in the courtyard. A
patrol was passing at the moment, but he took no notice of them.

The child made his way towards the garden, still followed by the two
women. There, for no little while, it was necessary to try which of all
the keys opened the door; it--was a time of inexpressible anxiety. At
last the key turned in the lock, the door opened; the queen and Mary
Seyton rushed into the garden. The child closed the door behind them.

About two-thirds of the way across, Little Douglas held out his hand as
a sign to them to stop; then, putting down the casket and the keys on
the ground, he placed his hands together, and blowing into them, thrice
imitated the owl's cry so well that it was impossible to believe that a
human voice was uttering the sounds; then, picking up the casket and the
keys, he kept on his way on tiptoe and with an attentive ear. On getting
near the wall, they again stopped, and after a moment's anxious waiting
the