ound my neck with trembling fingers by the
hangman, who took particular care to keep beyond the range of my teeth.
Half-a-dozen dragoons seized the further end of the coil, and stood
ready to swing me into eternity. Through all my adventurous life I have
never been so close upon the threshold of death as at that moment, and
yet I declare to you that, terrible as my position was, I could think
of nothing but the tattoo marks upon old Solomon Sprent's arm, and the
cunning fashion in which he had interwoven the red and the blue. Yet I
was keenly alive to all that was going on around me. The scene of the
bleak stone-floored room, the single narrow window, the two lounging
elegant officers, the pile of arms in the corner, and even the texture
of the coarse red serge and the patterns of the great brass buttons upon
the sleeve of the man who held me, are all stamped clearly upon my mind.

'We must do our work with order,' remarked the taller Captain, taking a
note-book from his pocket. 'Colonel Sarsfield may desire some details.
Let me see! This is the seventeenth, is it not?'

'Four at the farm and five at the cross-roads,' the other answered,
counting upon his fingers. 'Then there was the one whom we shot in the
hedge, and the wounded one who nearly saved himself by dying, and the
two in the grove under the hill. I can remember no more, save those who
were strung up in 'Bridgewater immediately after the action.'

'It is well to do it in an orderly fashion,' quoth the other, scribbling
in his book. 'It is very well for Kirke and his men, who are half Moors
themselves, to hang and to slaughter without discrimination or ceremony,
but we should set them a better example. What is your name, sirrah?'

'My name is Captain Micah Clarke,' I answered.

The two officers looked at each other, and the smaller one gave a long
whistle. 'It is the very man!' said he. 'This comes of asking questions!
Rat me, if I had not misgivings that it might prove to be so. They said
that he was large of limb.'

'Tell me, sirrah, have you ever known one Major Ogilvy of the Horse
Guards Blue?' asked the Captain.

'Seeing that I had the honour of taking him prisoner,' I replied, 'and
seeing also that he hath shared soldier's fare and quarters with me ever
since, I think I may fairly say that I do know him.'

'Cast loose the cord!' said the officer, and the hangman reluctantly
slipped the cord over my head once more. 'Young man, you are surely
reser