the
white-faced man sat down at a table to judge us.

I will not talk of that butchery. The white-faced man has been judged
now, in his turn; I will say no more of him. When it came to my turn, he
would hear no words from me; I was a rebel, fit for nothing but death.
"Pistol him" was all the sentence passed on me. The soldiers laid hands
on me to drag me away, to add my little corpse to the heap outside. One
of the officers spoke up for me. "He's only a boy," he said. "Go easy
with the boy. Don't have the poor child killed." It was kindly spoken;
but quite carelessly. The man would have pleaded for a cat with just as
much passion. It was useless, anyway, for the colonel merely repeated
"Pistol him," just as one would have ordered a wine at dinner.
"Burgundy." "No, the Burgundy here is all so expensive." "Never mind,
Burgundy." So I was led away to stand with the next batch of prisoners
lined against a wall to be shot. My place was at the end of a line,
next to a young sullen-looking man black with powder. I did not feel
frightened, only hopeless, quite hopeless, a sort of dead feeling. I
remember looking at the soldiers getting ready to shoot us. I wondered
which would shoot me. They seemed so slow about it. There was some
hitch, I think, in filling up the line; a man had proved his innocence
or something.

Then, the next instant, there was Aurelia dragging the white-faced man
from his table. I dimly remember him ordering me to be released, while
Sir Travers Carew gave me brandy. I remember the young sullen-looking
man's face; for he looked at me, a look of dull wonder, with a sort
of hopeless envy in it, which has wrung my heart daily, ever since.
"Mount," said Aurelia. "Mount, Martin. For God's sake, Uncle Travers,
let us get out of this." They were on both sides of me each giving me an
arm in the saddle, as we rode out of that field of death through Zoyland
village towards the old Abbey near Chard.

I shall say little more, except that I never saw my master again. When
they led him to the scaffold on Tower Hill I was outward bound to
the West Indies, as private secretary to Sir Travers, newly appointed
Governor of St. Eulalie. We had many of Monmouth's men in St. Eulalie
after the Bloody Assizes; but their tale is too horrible to tell here.
You will want to know whether I ever saw Aurelia again. Not for some
years, not very often for nine years; but since then our lives have been
so mingled that when we die it wil