on eventide of the second day, the early evening gloaming of
a chill autumnal rain-day, and I had been since morning dubiously lost
in the somber trackless forest, when an elfish cry rose, as it would
seem, from beneath the very hoofs of my horse.

"God save the king!"

The bay shied suddenly, standing with nostrils a-quiver; and I had to
look closely to make out the little brown dot of humanity clad in russet
homespun crouching in the path, its childish eyes wide with fear and its
lips parted to shrill again: "God save the king!"

I threw a stiff leg over the cantle and swung down to go on one knee to
my stout challenger. I can never make you understand, my dears, how the
sight of this helpless waif appearing thus unaccountably in the heart of
the great forest mellowed and softened me. 'Twas a little maid, not
above three or four years old, and with a face that Master Raphael might
have taken as a pattern for one of his seraphs.

"What know you of the king, little one?" I asked.

"Gran'dad told me," she lisped. "If I was to see a soldier-man I must
say, quick, 'God save the king,' or 'haps he'd eat me. Is--is you
hungry, Mister Soldier-man?"

"Truly I am that, sweetheart; but I don't eat little maids. Where is
your grandfather?"

"Ain't got any gran'favver; I said 'gran'_dad_.'"

"Well, your gran'dad, then; can you take me to him?"

"I don't know. 'Haps you'd eat _him_."

"No fear of that, my dear. Do I look as if I ate people?"

She gave me a long scrutiny out of the innocent eyes and then put up two
little brown hands to be taken. "I tired" she said; and my sore heart
went warm within me when I took her in my arms and cuddled her. After a
long-drawn sigh of contentment, she said: "My name Polly; what's yours?"

"You may call me Jack, if you please--Captain Jack, if that comes the
easier. And now will you let me take you to your gran'dad?"

She nodded, and I spoke to the bay and mounted, still holding her
closely in my arms.

"Tell me quickly which way to go, Polly," I said; for besides being, as
I would fear, far out of the way to Gilbert Town, the last hilltop to
the rear had given me another sight of my shadowing pursuers riding hard
as if they meant to overtake me.

The little maid sat up straight on the saddle horn and looked about her
as if to get her bearings.

"That way," she said, pointing short to the right; and I wheeled the
horse into a blind path that wound in and out among the trees f