“Tell me—­tell me instantly what I must do.  I am not afraid.  Shall I ride down to Jennifer House and fetch Dick here?”

“He is a prisoner, and if he were not, they would not let him see me.  Besides, I would not let you go on such an errand.  And yet—­God help me, Margery! there is many an innocent life hanging on this; the lives of helpless women and little children.  Have you ever a messenger to send, a man who will risk his life and can be trusted fully?”

“Yes, yes!” she cried.  “Write it down for me and Dick shall have it.  Quick; for Our Lady’s sake, be quick about it! O Sancta Maria, mater.  Dei—­”

The low impassioned chant of the Roman litany was ringing in my ears as I sat down to the table to write my message to Richard Jennifer.  There were quills and an ink-pot at hand, but no paper.  I felt mechanically in my pocket and found, not some old letter, as I hoped, but the crumpled parchment map snatched and hidden when Captain Stuart had winced and dropped it at the bidding of the whistling sword about his ears.

How it was they had not searched me for it, I know not; though haply the captain did not guess how he had lost it.  Be that as it might, I had it safe, and Dick should have it safe, and use it, too, to some good purpose, as I fondly hoped.

You’d hardly think from the slow and clumsy spinning of this tale that I could crowd the narrative of all that I had seen and heard into a niggard three-score words or less.  But this I did, writing them upon the margin of the captain’s map, and noting in an added line the pricking out of the powder convoy’s route.  And while my pen was looping on the flourish to my name, my eager little lady seized the pounce-box, sanded me the heavy trailings of the quill, snatched and hid the parchment in her bosom, and was gone.

And but for this; that I heard the door-latch click behind her, and then the heavy wooden bar fall into place, I might have thought the happenings of the hour the unsubstantial fancies of a dream.

X

HOW A FORLORN HOPE CAME TO GRIEF

Although I could not hope to know the outcome of this desperate cast to speed the warning to the over-mountain settlements—­could never live to know it, as I thought—­I screened the candle and stood beside the open window, not to see or hear, but rather from the lack of sight or sound to gather some encouragement.  For sure, I reasoned, if Margery’s messenger should fail to pass the sentries there would be clamor enough to tell me of it.