articularly approve. Now then, keep up your character.
And remember,"--her Ladyship was very grave now--"to call any of them by
his real name may be death to all of you."

I turned round and faced her.

"Madam, what will become of Colonel Keith?"

I thought her Ladyship looked rather keenly at me.

"`The sword devoureth one as well as another,'" was her reply. "You
know whence that comes, Miss Courtenay."

"Is that all?" I answered. "If any act of mine lead to his death, how
shall I answer it to his father and mother, and to Annas?"

"They gave him up to the Cause, my dear, when they sent him forth to
join the Prince. A soldier must always do his duty."

"Forgive me, Madam. I was not questioning his duty, but my own."

"Too late for that, Miss Courtenay. My dear, he is ready for death. I
would more of us were!"

I read in the superb eyes above me that she was not.

"Forward!" she said, as if giving a word of command.

Somehow, I felt as if I must go. Her Ladyship was right: it was too
late to draw back. So Ephraim and I set forth on our dangerous errand.

I cannot undertake to say how we went, or where. It all comes back to
me as if I had walked it in a dream: and I felt as if I were dreaming
all the while. At last, as we went along, carrying the basket, Ephraim
suddenly set it down with, "Hallo! what's that?" I knew then that we
must be close to the prison, and that he was about to leave me.

"I say, I must see after that. You go on, Bet!" cried Ephraim; and he
was off in a minute--in what direction I could not even see.

"Gemini!" cried I, catching up the word I had heard from Mrs Cropland's
Betty. "Joel! I say, Joel! You bad fellow, can't you come back? How
am I to lift this great thing, I should like to know?"

A dark shadow close to the wall moved a little.

"Come now, can't one of you lads help a poor maid?" said I. "It's a
shame of Joel to leave me in the lurch like this. Come, give us a
hand!"

I was trembling like an aspen leaf. Suppose the wrong man offered to
help me! What could I do then?

"Want a hand, my pretty maid?" said a voice which certainly was not
Colonel Keith's. "I'm your man! Give us hold!"

Oh, what was I to do! This horrid man would carry the basket, and how
could I explain to the warder? How could I know which warder was the
right one?

"Now then, hold hard, mate!" said a second voice, which I greeted with
delight. "Just you let this here youn