here with Sergeant Bedard, and the most of
the men could only guess, as their enemies had guessed, that he was
giving the signal of surrender.

But this M. Etienne could by no means believe; it belied his
brother's nature as well as his declared resolve. And so, while the
English captain with great politeness stated his terms--which were
unconditional surrender and nothing less--the poor gentleman kept
glancing over his shoulder and answering at random, "Yes, yes," or
"Precisely--if you will allow me," or "Excuse me a moment, until my
brother--" In short, he rambled so that Captain Muspratt could only
suppose his wits unhinged. It was scarce credible that a sane man
could receive such a message inattentively, and yet this old
gentleman did not seem to be listening!

Diane meanwhile stood at the mouth of her shelter with her eyes
lifted, intent upon the tower's summit. She, too had seen the flag
run down with the bursting of the bomb, and she alone had hit in her
mind on the true explanation--that a flying shard had cut clean
through the up-halliard close to the staff, and the flag--heavy with
golden lilies of her own working--had at once dropped of its own
weight. She had caught sight, too, of her father's arm reaching up
to grasp it, and she knew why. The flagstaff had a double set of
halliards.

She waited--waited confidently, since her father was alive up there.
She marvelled that he had escaped, for the explosion had seemed to
wrap the battlements in one sheet of fire. Nevertheless he was
safe--she had seen him--and she waited for the flag to rise again.

Minutes passed. She took a step forward from her shelter.
The firing had ceased and the courtyard was curiously still and
empty. Then four of the five militiamen posted to watch the back
of the building came hurrying across towards the gateway.
She understood--her senses being strung for the moment so tensely
that they seemed to relieve her of all trouble of thinking--she
understood that a parley was going forward at the gate and that these
men were hurrying from their posts to hear it. In her ears the
bugles still sounded the "Cease firing "; and still she gazed up at
the tower.

Yes--she had made no mistake! The spare halliards were shaking; in a
second or two--but why did they drag so interminably?--the flag would
rise again.

And it rose. Before her eyes, before the eyes of the parleyers in
the gateway and of the British watching from their