the boat.

"And what are you going to do now?" she asked.

"I? Why, I must go back to help Captain Blaise."

"Oh, of course. But hurry back. And be careful, won't you?"

I ran up the path and was soon at his elbow. The column was crowding
down the path, and so soon after coming from the bright light, possibly
they could not see clearly when he swung. However it was, one groaned
and slid down. He cut again and the head of the column stopped dead.
"What's wrong?" came a voice, the Governor's. "What are you stopping
for?"

"Won't you step this way and find out?" jeered Captain Blaise.

"What! only one man?"

The hedge lining the path was waist high, trimmed flat and wide, but I
never suspected what was coming until I saw the flash and felt the ting
of the bullet on my cheek. "Drop!" warned Captain Blaise, but I had no
mind to drop. I held one of Mr. Cunningham's duelling pistols ready for
the next shot. I saw it and fired, to the right of and just above the
flash. I had half seen how he had rested his elbow on the hedge and
carried his head to one side when he fired that first shot. There was
the crash of a body through the hedge. And then a silence.

"You got him, I think," said Captain Blaise.

I had been spun half around by the shock of something or other, and now
I was once more facing the path squarely, and a thought of those red and
blue and gold uniforms jammed in there gave me an idea. "Ready, men!" I
called out. "Steady! Aim!--and be sure you fire low." No more than that,
when in the Governor's guard there was the wildest scrambling and
trampling to get to the rear.

And we left them falling rearward over each other and ran for the
landing. The men were waiting on their oars. We leaped in, and Captain
Blaise took the tiller ropes. "Give way!" he ordered.

Mr. Cunningham was lying on cushions in the bottom of the boat. I was
still laughing, and he rolled his head, I thought, to look at me.

"Where did that skunk get you, Guy?" asked Captain Blaise.

"Why, I didn't know that he got me at all."

"Feel on your cheek."

There was blood, not much, trickling down my right cheek.

"You'd better attend to it."

"Yes, sir."

Warm fingers met mine. It was her silk scarf which she was pressing
into my hand. I thrust it in my left breast, then took my own
handkerchief and held it to my cheek.

I was chuckling to myself as I fancied the Governor's guards tumbling
over each other in their retreat, when Ca