r, the guns of St. John would
surely speak in his behalf when he was about to be hanged before its
very gate. Such a parade of the act must be discovered on the walls. It
was plain that Klussman had deserted to D'Aulnay, and was now enjoying
D'Aulnay's gratitude.

"The tree that doth best front the gates," said one of the men, pointing
with his torch to an elm in the alluvial soil: "my lord said the tree
that doth best front the gates."

"That hath no fit limbs," objected another.

"He said the tree that doth best front the gates," insisted the first
man. "Besides this one, what shrub hereabouts is tall enough for our
use?"

They moved down towards the elm. A stool carried by one man showed its
long legs grotesquely behind his back. There were six persons besides
the prisoner, all soldiers except one, who wore the coarse, long,
cord-girdled gown of a Capuchin. His hood was drawn over his face, and
the torches imperfectly showed that he was of the bare-footed order and
wore only sandals. He held up a crucifix and walked close beside
Klussman. But the Swiss gazed all around the dark world which he was so
soon to leave, and up at the fortress he had attempted to betray, and
never once at the murmuring friar.

The soldier in the trench heard a breathing near him, and saw that a
number of the ponies, drawn by the light, had left their fitful grazing
and were venturing step by step beyond the end of the trench. Some
association of this scene with soldiers who used to feed them at night,
after a hard day of drawing home the winter logs, may have stirred
behind their shaggy foreheads. He took his hunting-knife with sudden and
desperate intention, threw off his moccasins, cut his leggins short at
the middle of the leg, and silently divided his blanket into strips.

Preparations were going forward under the elm. One of the soldiers
climbed the tree and crept out upon an arched limb, catching the rope
end thrown up to him. Both torches were given to one man, that all the
others might set themselves to the task. Klussman stood upon the stool,
which they had brought for the purpose from the cook's galley in one of
their ships. His blond face, across which all his thoughts used to
parade, was cast up by the torches like a stiffened mask, hopeless yet
fearless in its expression.

"Come, Father Vincent," said the man who had made the knot, sliding down
the tree. "This is a Huguenot fellow, and good words are lost on him. I
won