or nears the door. The noises of the camp have died
away and silence reigns at last over plain, fort and field. Both
Brownies and Pixies are weary with the day's battling and sleep well.
Faith and Sophia, too, after a long talk about their trials and their
loves, their hopes, fears and joys, have fallen asleep in each other's
arms.

The stars that mark the midnight hour are fast hastening into the
zenith. The sentinels walk their beats with weary pace. The relief
guards will soon be on the rounds. Faith and Sophia stir in their sleep
uneasily as though dimly conscious that the whistle will soon call them
to duty. There is a soft touch, as the touch of an angel's finger, upon
their cheeks. It seems to rest upon their eyes, their lips. It is
pressed against their nostrils. It stays their breathing. They turn
restlessly on their couch. They toss their arms, but the soft touch is
on them, too. Cannot they awake?

Yes, their eyes are open now. Is it a dream? Is it the vision of a
nightmare? Two forms, the terrible forms of their foes, the Pixies, are
bending over them, wrapping them around in the silken folds of their
snares!

Alas! it is no dream. The most dreaded of all their enemies, Spite the
Spy, chief of the Pixies, and Hide the son of Shame, are crouching at
their bedside. The maidens start from their pillows, but fall back again
hopeless. They are bound hand and foot as with grave-clothes. They are
wrapped in a winding sheet of gossamer; enshrouded alive.[Z]

Spite reckoned truly that the next impulse of the Nurses would be to
scream. He thrust his hairy face close against their cheeks, and hissed
from between his lips, "Utter one sound and you die! Keep still and you
shall not be harmed."

[Illustration: THE BOY'S ILLUSTRATION.
FIG. 42.--Spite and Hide Carry off the Nurses.]

Sophia swooned quite away. Faith closed her eyes and waited in an agony
of fear. She felt Spite's strong arms placed around her. She was lifted
from her couch; was borne through the tent. She was in the open air, and
the breeze blowing upon her cheeks revived her. She opened her eyes. In
the clear moonlight she could see Hide pushing through the side of the
covered gangway, close by the rear door of the marquee, carrying Sophia
in his arms. With an instinct of hope that no terror could check she
lifted her voice and screamed with the energy of despair. She felt the
Pixie's hot breath upon her cheek; an awful oath sounded in her ear,
and