ough which we returned when Captain Dyer and Harry
Lant were taken. While on the east was the market plain or square, and
on the west a wilderness of open country with huts and sheds. I felt,
do you know, that a good plan of escape at this time was just what I
ought to make, every one else being busy with duty, and me not able to
either fight or stand sentry, so I worked on hard at it that night,
trying to be useful in some way; and after a fashion, I worked one out.

But I have not told you what I meant to do with that last cartridge in
my pouch; I meant that to be pressed to my lips once before I contrived
with one hand to load my rifle, and then if the worst came to the very
worst, and when I had waited to the last to see if help would come,
then, when it seemed that there was no hope, I meant to do what I told
myself it would be my duty, as a man and a soldier, to do, if I loved
Lizzy Green--do what more than one man did, during the mutiny, by the
woman for whom he had been shedding his heart's best blood; and in the
dead of that night I did load that gun, after kissing the bullet; and a
deal of pain that gave me, mental as well as bodily, but I don't think
that I need to tell you what that last cartridge was for.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

I think by this time you pretty well understand the situation of our
palace, and how our stronghold was on the north side, close to which was
the gate, so hardly fought for: if you don't, I'm afraid it is my fault,
and not yours.

At all events, being at liberty, I went over it here and there, and from
floor to roof, as I tried to make out which would be the best way for
trying to escape; but somehow I couldn't see it then. To go out from
the gate was impossible; and the same related to the broken-out window,
as both places were thoroughly watched.

As for the other windows about the place, they were such slips, that
without they were widened, any escaping by them was impossible. To have
let ourselves down, one by one, from the flat roof by a rope, might have
done, but it was a clumsy unsuitable way, with all those children and
women, so I gave that up, and then sat down as I was by a little window
looking out on to the north alley.

Wearied out at last, I suppose that a sort of stupor came over me, from
which I did not wake till morning, to find myself suffering a dull numb
pain; but when I opened my eyes I forgot that, because of her who was
kneeling beside me