belonged
naturally to the other side. It wasn't that I liked opposing you. If
it had been Tallowax that you were to begin with, or Exors, you might
have burnt 'em up without a word from me."

"I am gratified at hearing that."

"Though the Fixed Period does seem to be horrible, I would have
swallowed all that at your bidding. But you can see how I tumbled
into it, and how Eva egged me on, and how the nearer the thing came
the more I was bound to fight. Will you believe it?--Eva swore a most
solemn oath, that if her father was put into that college she would
never marry a human being. And up to that moment when the lieutenant
met us at the top of the hill, she was always as cold as snow."

"And now the snow is melted?"

"Yes,--that is to say, it is beginning to thaw!" As he said this I
remembered the kiss behind the parlour-door which had been given to
her by another suitor before these troubles began, and my impression
that Jack had seen it also; but on that subject I said nothing. "Of
course it has all been very happy for me," Jack continued; "but I
wish to say to you before you go, how unhappy it makes me to think
that I have opposed you."

"All right, Jack; all right. I will not say that I should not have
done the same at your age, if Eva had asked me. I wish you always to
remember that we parted as friends. It will not be long before you
are married now."

"Three months," said Jack, in a melancholy tone.

"In an affair of importance of this kind, that is the same as
to-morrow. I shall not be here to wish you joy at your wedding."

"Why are you to go if you don't wish it?"

"I promised that I would go when Captain Battleax talked of carrying
me off the day before yesterday. With a hundred soldiers, no doubt he
could get me on board."

"There are a great many more than a hundred men in Britannula as good
as their soldiers. To take a man away by force, and he the President
of the republic! Such a thing was never heard of. I would not stir if
I were you. Say the word to me, and I will undertake that not one of
these men shall touch you."

I thought of his proposition; and the more I thought of it, the more
unreasonable it did appear that I, who had committed no offence
against any law, should be forced on board the John Bright. And I
had no doubt that Jack would be as good as his word. But there were
two causes which persuaded me that I had better go. I had pledged
my word. When it had been suggested that