ack:
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
they heard a groan, then something like the sound of a falling body.
Some seconds later the owl's cry was--answered by a tu-whit-tu-whoo.

"It is over," Little Douglas said calmly; "come."

"What is over?" asked the queen; "and what is that groan we heard?"

"There was a sentry at the door on to the lake," the child answered, "but
he is no longer there."

The queen felt her heart's blood grow cold, at the same tine that a
chilly sweat broke out to the roots of her hair; for she perfectly
understood: an unfortunate being had just lost his life on her