peated with the air of one striving to speak
lucidly; then with a change of tone, "Give me your pistol, please."

She held it out obediently, at arm's length; but as he took it she
seemed to remember, and crept close.

"Non--non!" she whispered. "C'est a moi-que tu le dois, enfin!"

From the staircase--not close beneath the hatch, but, as it seemed,
far below their feet--came the muffled sound of shots, and between
the shots hoarse cries of rage.

"Courage!" whispered John. He could hear that men were grappling and
fighting down there, and supposed the Forty-sixth to be at hand.
He could not know that the parleyers at the gate, appalled for an
instant by the vision of Diane with a dozen savages in chase, had
rallied at a yell from Dominique Guyon, pelted after him to the
rescue, and were now at grips with the rearmost Oneidas--a locked and
heaving mass choking the narrow spirals of the stairway.

"Courage!" he whispered again, and pressing a knee on the edge of the
hatch reached out a hand to steady her. What mattered it if they
died now--together--he and she? "_Tu dois_"--she loved him; her lips
had betrayed her. "_Tu dois_"--the words sang through him,
thrilling, bathing him in bliss.

"O my love! O my love!"

The blows beat upward against the hatch and ceased. He sprang erect,
slid an arm around her and dragged her back--not a second too soon.
A gun exploded against the hinges at their feet, blowing one loose.
John saw the crevice gaping and the muzzle of a gun pushed through to
prise it open. He leaped upon the hatch, pistol in hand.

"Forty-sixth! Forty-sixth!"

What was that? Through the open crevice a British cheer answered
him. The man levering against his weight lost hold of the gun,
leaving it jammed. John heard the slide and thud of his fall.

"Hallo!" hailed a cheerful voice from the foot of the ladder.
"You there!--open the trap-way and show us some light!"

John knelt, slipped back the bolt, and turned to Diane. She had
fallen on her knees--but what had happened to her? She was cowering
before the joy in his face, shrinking away from him and yet
beseeching.

"Le pistolet--donne-moi le pistolet!"--her voice hissed on the word,
her eyes petitioned him desperately. "Ah, de grace! tu n'a pas le
droit--"

He understood. With a passing bitter laugh he turned from her
entreaties and hurled the pistol across the battlements into air.
A hand flung open the hatch. A British officer-