the hold.
The rest of the band were set to manufacturing cartridges, and buying
or borrowing all the firearms {118} they could obtain on the pretence
of hunting. Word was secretly carried from man to man that, when a
light was hoisted on the end of a flagstaff above the Benyowsky hut,
all were to rally for the settlement across the ravine from the fort.

The crisis came before the harbor had opened. Benyowsky was on a sled
journey inland with the governor, when an exile came to him by night
with word that one of the conspirators had lost his nerve and
determined to save his own neck by confessing all to the governor.

The traitor was even now hard on the trail to overtake the governor.
Without a moment's wavering, Benyowsky sent the messenger with a flask
of poisoned brandy back to meet the man.

The Pole had scarcely returned to his hut in the exile village, when
the governor's daughter came to him in tears. Ismyloff, a young
Russian trader, who had all winter tried to join the conspirators as a
spy, had been on the trail when the traitor was poisoned and was even
now closeted with Governor Nilow.

It was the night of April 23. No sooner had the daughter gone than the
light was run up on the flagstaff, the bridge across the ravine broken
down, arms dragged from hiding in the cellars, windows and doors
barricaded, sentinels placed in hiding along the ditch between village
and fort. For a whole day, no word came. Governor and chancellor were
still busy examining witnesses. In the morning came a maid {119} from
the governor's daughter with a red thread of warning, and none too
soon, for at ten o'clock, a Cossack sergeant brought a polite
invitation from the governor for the pleasure of M. Benyowsky's company
at breakfast.

M. Benyowsky returns polite regrets that he is slightly indisposed, but
hopes to give himself the pleasure later.

The sergeant winked his eyes and opined it was wiser to go by fair
means than to be dragged by main force.

The Pole advised the sergeant to make his will before repeating that
threat.

Noon saw two Cossacks and an officer thundering at the Pole's door.
The door opened wide. In marched the soldiers, armed to the teeth; but
before their clicking heels had ceased to mark time, the door was shut
again. Benyowsky had whistled. A dozen exiles rose out of the floor.
Cossacks and captors rolled in a heap. The soldiers were bound head to
feet, and bundled into the cellar. Mean