gument, and it would only hasten an end which I felt he
could prevent if he chose.

So when I was asked if I had aught to say, I pleaded only that they had
not kept the Articles of War signed at Fort Necessity, which provided I
should be free within two months and a half--that is, when prisoners in
our hands should be delivered up to them, as they were. They had broken
their bond, though we had fulfilled ours, and I held myself justified in
doing what I had done for our cause and for my own life.

I was not heard patiently, though I could see that the Governor and
the Chevalier were impressed; but Bigot instantly urged the case hotly
against me, and the end came very soon. It was now dark; a single light
had been brought and placed beside the Governor, while a soldier held a
torch at a distance. Suddenly there was a silence; then, in response to
a signal, the sharp ringing of a hundred bayonets as they were drawn
and fastened to the muskets, and I could see them gleaming in the feeble
torchlight. Presently, out of the stillness, the Governor's voice was
heard condemning me to death by hanging, thirty days hence, at sunrise.
Silence fell again instantly, and then a thing occurred which sent a
thrill through us all. From the dark balcony above us came a voice,
weird, high, and wailing:

"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! He is guilty, and shall die! Francois Bigot
shall die!"

The voice was Mathilde's, and I saw Doltaire shrug a shoulder and look
with malicious amusement at the Intendant. Bigot himself sat pale and
furious. "Discover the intruder," he said to Gabord, who was standing
near, "and have--him--jailed."

But the Governor interfered. "It is some drunken creature," he urged
quietly. "Take no account of it."

X. AN OFFICER OF MARINES

What was my dismay to know that I was to be taken back again to my
dungeon, and not lodged in the common jail, as I had hoped and Alixe had
hinted! When I saw whither my footsteps were directed I said nothing,
nor did Gabord speak at all. We marched back through a railing crowd as
we had come, all silent and gloomy. I felt a chill at my heart when the
citadel loomed up again out of the November shadow, and I half paused as
I entered the gates. "Forward!" said Gabord mechanically, and I moved
on into the yard, into the prison, through the dull corridors, the
soldiers' heels clanking and resounding behind, down into the bowels of
the earth, where the air was moist and warm, and t