he was looking me over with the eye
of an underwriter who has insured at a heavy premium a rotten hulk bound
for stormy seas. I laughed bitterly.

"You may win yet," I said. "This cursed prison fever is eating me up;" and
with that I turned my back on him.

I do not intend to go into my trial with any particularity. From first to
last I had no chance and everybody in the room understood it. There were a
dozen witnesses to prove that I had been in the thick of the rebellion.
Among the rest was Volney, in a vile temper at being called on to give
testimony. He was one of your reluctant witnesses, showed a decided
acrimony toward the prosecution, and had to have the facts drawn out of
him as with a forceps. Such a witness, of high social standing and
evidently anxious to shield me, was worth to the State more than all the
other paltry witnesses combined. The jury voted guilty without leaving the
court-room, after which the judge donned his black cap and pronounced the
horrible judgment which was the doom of traitors. I was gash with fear,
but I looked him in the face and took it smilingly. It was Volney who led
the murmur of approval which greeted my audacity, a murmur which broke
frankly into applause when Aileen, white to the lips, came fearlessly up
to bid me be of good cheer, that she would save me yet if the importunity
of a woman would avail aught.

Wearily the days dragged themselves into weeks, and still no word of hope
came to cheer me. There was, however, one incident that gave me much
pleasure. On the afternoon before the day set for our execution Donald Roy
made his escape. Some one had given him a file and he had been tinkering
at his irons for days. We were in the yard for our period of exercise, and
half a dozen of us, pretending to be in earnest conversation together,
surrounded him while he snapped the irons. Some days before this time he
had asked permission to wear the English dress, and he now coolly
sauntered out of the prison with some of the visitors quite unnoticed by
the guard.

The morning dawned on which nine of us were to be executed. Our coffee was
served to us in the room off the yard, and we drank it in silence. I
noticed gladly that Macdonald was not with us, and from that argued that
he had not been recaptured.

"Here's wishing him a safe escape from the country," said Creagh.

"Lucky dog!" murmured Leath, "I hope they won't nail him again."

Brandy was served. Creagh named the toast