“You are exhausted, Mistress Royal, you ought not to be here,” said one of the surgeons sternly.  “Go and rest.”

“Oh, please let me stay,” she pleaded with a humility so new that he looked at her with curiosity.

“Hush!” said his assistant making an excuse to draw him aside.  “Don’t you know she’s been watching the men set out for the Fort?”

Elizabeth found words of comfort for a soldier who was mourning because his wife would have no one to look after her, if he died.  “I will help her,” she said.  And then, by the light of the flaring candle, she wrote down the woman’s address.  She repeated verses of Scripture for some who asked her for them, and found a little steadiness of voice in doing it.  But through everything she saw Archdale’s vigorous form and heard Edmonson’s passionate voice and his words.  With such a marksman, and at such range, how could a shot stray!

But she dreaded still more the time when the expedition should return.  To-night she bitterly regretted that the General had not been told her errand, and saw that when Mr. Royal urged it, it had been the wish to save her that had made Stephen Archdale ask him not to do it.

Three hours after the start she heard that the expedition had failed.  All that was left was returning, the wounded would soon be brought in.  Her little strength deserted her for the moment She sank down helpless in the shadow.  Then she rose and went forward.

As the boat lay rocking on the waves waiting for the others, Archdale took his bearings.  Leaning towards the stern, he said to one of his men:—­

“Greene will you change places with me?” If the man had thought the request more than a whim, he would have supposed it to be because the captain considered his new choice a more dangerous post.  Archdale seating himself again glanced toward the bow.  He was now on the same side with Edmonson and the fourth man from him.  It would be somewhat difficult to have the latter’s gun go off by accident and be sure of its mark, and Greene was safe so far as exemption from an enemy at hand was concerned.  Archdale would have preferred Edmonson’s left hand but when it came to disembarking, his enemy should precede him.

“Better cushions?” asked Edmonson with a sneering laugh under which he tried to hide his anger.  “Can’t see any other motive for your running the risk of capsizing us.”

“It is very presumptuous to do anything for which Captain Edmonson cannot see the motive,” returned Archdale haughtily.

“By Heavens!” cried Edmonson in another moment “You’re bound to die in character if it come to a question of dying and of course it will with some of us.”

Stephen made no answer.  He felt more strongly than ever that he needed good eyes and firm nerves.  To be killed like a rat in a trap!  His blood ran too warm in his veins to submit tamely to this.  When the struggle should come yonder it mattered little whether it was by Edmonson’s shot or another’s, for if he fell in the heat of the conflict it would always be said that he died a soldier’s death.  And if he lived to come back Edmonson, should take boat first.  He turned himself slightly toward his foe, and sat silent and observant.