she
shall not lack a friend. If you have any word to leave for her--"

I shook my head. "No," said I; then, on second thought: "And yet there
is a word. You saw how I must see the matter through to shield the
lady?"

"Surely; 'twas plain enough for any one to see."

"Then I shall die the easier if you will undertake to make it plain to
Richard Jennifer. He must be made to know that I supplanted him only in
a formal way, and that to save the lady's honor."

The lieutenant promised heartily, and as he spoke, the oaken bar was
lifted and my reprieve was at an end.

Having the thing to despatch before they broke their fast, my soldier
hangmen marched me off without ado. The house and all within it seemed
yet asleep, but out of doors the legion vanguard was astir, and newly
kindled camp-fires smoked and blazed among the trees. In shortest space
we left these signs of life behind, and I began to think toward the end.

'Tis curious how sweet this troubled life of ours becomes when that day
wakes wherein it must be shuffled off! As a soldier must, I thought I
had held life lightly enough; nay, this I know; I had often worn it
upon my sleeve in battle. But now, when I was marching forth to this
cold-blooded end without the battle-chance to make it welcome, all
nature cried aloud to me.

The dawn was not unlike that other dawn a month past when I had ridden
down the river road with Jennifer; a morning fair and fine, its cup
abrim and running over with the wine of life. I thought the cool, moist
air had never seemed so sweet and fragrant; that nature's garb had never
seemed so blithe. There was no hint nor sign of death in all the wooded
prospect. The birds were singing joyously; the squirrels, scarce alarmed
enough to scamper out of sight, sat each upon his bough to chatter at us
as we passed. And once, when we were filing through a bosky dell with
softest turf to muffle all our treadings, a fox ran out and stood with
one uplifted foot, and was as still as any stock or stone until he had
the scent of us.

A mile beyond the outfields of Appleby Hundred we passed the legion
picket line, and I began to wonder why we went so far; wondered and made
bold to ask the ensign in command, turning it into a grim jest and
saying I misliked to come too weary to my end.

The ensign, a curst young popinjay, as little officer cubs are like to
be, answered flippantly that the colonel had commuted my sentence; that
I was to be shot like