rful interposition, friend, from the
consequences of your absence; for I was there when the names were called,
and 'present' was answered for the sentinel at the tower court."

"Father of mercy!" cried Gerald in despair. "What, then, has happened?"

"Happened!" echoed the soldier; "why, the prisoner has tried to escape!
But didn't you hear the shots? They brought the old reprobate to the
earth, of a surety."

Gerald uttered a loud groan and fell against the wall of the house; but in
another moment he recovered himself by a desperate effort from a feeling
of sickness and death, and repulsing violently the soldier who had come to
his assistance, he rushed round the mansion with whirling brain and
clenched teeth towards the tower court. His father had been killed--killed
by his own folly. Rage, despair, contrition, self-horror, at having been
so weak as to accept Maywood's proposal to drink that fatal drink which
caused his deadly sleep, all tortured his heart, and drove him almost to
madness. He could not doubt that it was that hated Maywood who had
deceived him, drugged his liquour, cheated him into a sleep, in order to
be present undisturbed at his rendezvous with Mildred; and now it was by
his hand, by the hand of that villain, that his father had fallen.

All was commotion in the fortress. Gerald, as he rushed forward, heard the
noise of voices and boats upon the water--the voice of Lazarus Seaman--now
the men calling to each other. Horror-stricken, overwhelmed with despair,
convulsed with rage, he bounded through the vaulted passage. In the
moonlit court stood now but one figure alone--the sentinel, who was
bending over the parapet, and seemed to be watching with interest the
movement of the boats upon the water. With the rage of a tiger Gerald
sprang upon him, and seized him by the collar with frenzied gripe. It
was, indeed, Maywood--pale, agitated, and excited.

"Villain! traitor! assassin!" screamed Gerald madly, frantic with passion
and despair, "you have betrayed that greyheaded old man; you have murdered
him; but I will have revenge! He was my father, and it is you have killed
him."

"_Your_ father!" exclaimed the young sentinel in a voice choked by
emotion. "He was _mine_, and I have saved him."

Gerald released his hold and staggered back.

For a moment the young men stared at each other in bewildered surprise.
Then all at once the truth flashed across them.

"Brother! brother!" burst simultaneously