he exchange was brief. Strange presently stepped inside and said:

"They say they want their leader--Ambrose Doane."

A dead silence fell on the little group. They turned and stared at
Ambrose. He, for the moment, was stunned with astonishment. He was
aware only of Colina's stricken, white face. She looked as if she had
been shot.

"They say they are ready to go," Strange went on. "They promise to
make no more trouble if we give Doane up. If we refuse, they say they
will take him, anyway."

"It's an infernal lie!" cried Ambrose desperately. "I am no leader of
theirs!"

She did not believe him. Her eyes lost all their luster and her lovely
face looked ashen. She seemed about to fall.

Giddings went to her aid, but she pushed him away. She seemed
unconscious of the presence of the ethers. Her accusing eyes were
fixed on Ambrose.

"I believed in you," she murmured in a dead voice. "I believed in you!
Oh, God!" Her hands were flung up in a despairing gesture. "Let him
go!" she cried to Macfarlane over her shoulder, and ran down the hall
and up the stairs.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A CHANGE OF JAILERS.

There was a significant silence in the passage when Colina had gone.

Finally Macfarlane said stubbornly, "He's my prisoner. It's my duty to
hold him against any odds. It's the first rule of the service."

Giddings and Pringle urgently remonstrated with him. Strange held
apart as if he considered it none of his business. At last, with a
deprecating air, he added his voice to the other men's.

"Look here," he said smoothly; "you know best, of course; but aren't
there times when a soldier must make his own rules? All of us men
would stand by you gladly, but there's a sick man up-stairs that they
have been taught to hate. And a woman."

Macfarlane gave in with a shrug. "I suppose you'll stand by me if I'm
hauled up for it," he grumbled.

He drew his revolver and stood aside to let Ambrose pass. The others
likewise drew back, as from one marked with the plague. Every face was
hard with scorn.

Ambrose kept his eyes straight ahead. When he appeared on the porch,
cries, apparently of welcome, were raised by the Kakisas.

Ambrose supposed that Strange had made a deal with the Kakisas to put
him out of the way. He believed that he was going straight to his
death.

He accepted it sooner than make an appeal to those who scorned him. He
wished to speak to them before he went; but it was to