ds behind me. Then I felt my muscles
tighten as I began to measure the fall and to wonder if I could
clear the bayonets. I had no doubt I was to die shortly, and it
mattered not to me how, bound as I was, so that it came soon. For
a breath of silence my soul went up to the feet of God for help and
hope. Then I bent my knees and leaped, I saw much as my body went
rushing through the air--an empty grave its heap of earth beside
it, an island of light, walled with candles, in a sea of gloom,
faces showing dimly in the edge of the darkness, "Thank God! I
shall clear the bayonets," I thought, and struck heavily upon a
soft mat, covered over with green turf, a little beyond that
bristling bed. I staggered backward, falling upon it. To my
surprise, it bent beneath me. They were no bayonets, but only
shells of painted paper. I got to my feet none the worse for
jumping, and as dumfounded as ever a man could be. I stood on a
lot of broken turf with which a wide floor had been overlaid.
Boards and timbers were cut away, and the grave dug beneath them.
I saw one face among others in the gloom beyond the candle
rows--that of his Lordship. He was coming up a little flight of
stairs to where I stood. He moved the candles, making a small
passage, and came up to me.

"You're a brave man," said he, in that low, careless tone of his.

"And you a coward," was my answer, for the sight of him had made me
burn with anger.

"Don't commit yourself on a point like that," said he, quickly,
"for, you know, we are not well acquainted. I like your pluck, and
I offer you what is given to few here--an explanation."

He paused, lighting a cigarette. I stood looking at him. The cold
politeness of manner with which he had taken my taunt, his perfect
self-mastery, filled me with wonder. He was no callow youth, that
man, whoever he might be. He was boring at the floor with the end
of a limber cane as he continued to address me.

"Now, look here," he went on, with a little gesture of his left
hand, between the fingers of which a cigarette was burning. "You
are now in the temple of a patriotic society acting with no letters
patent, but in the good cause of his Most Excellent Majesty King
George III, to whom be health and happiness."

As he spoke the name he raised his hat, and a cheer came from all
sides of us.

"It is gathered this night," he continued, "to avenge the death of
Lord Ronley, a friend of his Majesty, and of many here