In Direst Peril

aid, holding the scrap of paper be

ssed. Poor gentleman's wif

an Englishman, and you

ing William was on the th

nhappy gentleman, this Count Ro

years a

the fortress was a prison. He had heard queer stories about the treatment the Austrians gave their prisoners. His interest was awakened, and his fancy began to be excited. When he had filled the cart, and the peasant had gone away, Hinge cleared from the wall the remainder of the heap, and found that he had laid bare a grated window almost on a level with the ground. The glass was so thickly incrusted with filth as to be as opaque as the wall by which it was surrounded, but at the broken pane a face appeared. The man in telling me the story was honestly moved. He could not describe the condition of the man he saw without imprecations on his jailer and the whole country that held them. He told me that the prisoner's hair grew to his waist, and was of a dreadful unwholesome gray; that his beard and mustache were matted, his eyes were sunken, and his face was unwashed and of the color of stale unbaked bread. The man spoke with difficulty, but had a fair knowledge of English, though he seeme

im was, of course, an invention. That did not surprise me, but I hated Brunow for it. The man's shallow and worthles

think you are the man to keep it. I am going to ask you to help me in a difficult and dangerous bit of

u, sir,"

en. I am going to have a try t

s,

ng to ask you

s,

you

can,

this matter over and get it ship-

Hinge answered; "and bein

there. I told him of the countess's early death, and I told him of my meeting with her daughter and of the promise I had made to her. I set before him the fact that, if the venture succeeded and h

er beggars, these Austrians, and they wouldn't be above collaring the lot if we

to set about t

rders, sir, and

about the guards? Is the priso

at night-time. In the day-time

ere packed in my knapsack now. I asked Hinge if he would pass these to the prisoner, an

w were quite rotten at the bottom, and could be sawn through in an hour. The day-time would be safest, a

aid Hinge. "That's all right. But gettin him out o'

s charge. It would surprise nobody if a message came from the general ordering Hinge to meet him at any hour with two led horses. If he knew when that hour would come he could have the prisoner ready in uniform, and they

ived a similar order which had been countermanded, and therefore never surrendered, as it would have

om, and made many heart-breaking attempts to imitate it. They were absolute failures, one and all. I had no faculty in that direction, and my own hand stared at me from the written page the more plainly and uncompromisingly for every ef

. He took advantage of our next meeting with Breschia to tell him that he was off on a three or four days' sketching expedition, leaving me behind. He commended me to the lieutenant's friendly hospitality with all his usual gayety of manner, and on the following morning he rode away. The arrangement made between us was that he should return at about ten o'clock o

ents, any one of which might wreck our plans for good and all, and to suffer in the contemplation of each of these inventions of my own as much as I could have suffered if it had been true, to read knowledge or suspicion in every innocent glance that fell upon me, to fear and suspect everybody and everything, and to keep a c

ranquillity I could snatch might be of moment to me, rest and tranquillity were absolutely impossible. For two whole nights I had not closed my eyes in sleep, and my brain seem

moon rose the last look I had taken at the hills which hemmed us in on every side had shown them seemingly hidden by driving mists, which travelled at an astonishing pace, betokening a wild wind up there, while the valley lay in a hot stillness. The light of the moon was i

e, now it was the movement of a goat, a cow, or a horse upon the hill-side. But at last I caught the real sound, and knew it at once from all the noises which had till then deceived my fancy. The rider came along at a good round pac

neous with a piercing glare of lightning, and the rain came down in torrents. After the flash of lightning everything looked so impenetrably black and formless that I might as well have stared about me with my eyes shut, but a second flash showed me the gate of the fortress quivering in the light, and so distinct and near that I might have believed it no more than a stone's throw off, though I knew it to be a full mile away. In the sudden howling of the wind and the pelting of the rain I could hear nothing, but I kept my aching eyes fixed in the direction of the fortress, and over and over again I saw it leap out of darkness distinct and seeming near, but quivering as if it were built of air and shaken by a wind. The river, which flowed quit

ickly many a time-when another flash showed them nearer, like a dark group of statuary, the horses quivering at the glare, and the heads of the riders bent against the wind and rain. I ran forward, not daring to call, and found them again in the lightning and lost them again in the dark half a dozen times. When at last we met I hailed them in a guarded tone, though it was a marvel to me that nobody was abroad at such an hour. Brunow replied boisterously, and I mounted in the dark, being half doubled as I did so by a kick f

uld have been uncanny even in the daylight, so that we made slow progress. I had travelled the way repeatedly, for this was the route by which I had

y, the wind had sunk to an occasional sob and moan, the rain had cleared, and the moon rode high in a mass of skurrying cloud, which at times obscured her li

im, in such dim and changing light as there was, with a profound interest. He sat with a tired stoop in his saddle, and his head

i Rossano?" I asked,

er forget. "I know from my faithful friend here, to whom I

runow, sir," I said, "and I am

ng, "Captain Fyffe, my dear friend Corporal Hinge, I am wit

together then, and we a

ked Brunow. "Every minute is

ay be passable in an hour, now that t

in his tone. "Why didn't we cross by the bridge? We

I answered; "but we both thought it best whe

cried Brunow, fuming. "Ha

e was no need to ask what it was, for it was impossible to mistake it. It was the

appened. He came up, sir," addressing himself to me, "just as the count was climbing out o' window. I knocked hi

We were between three and four miles away, but i

t by this time have been within half a

at the toll-gate, sir. We're a lot better off where we are. I kn

ismount and rest our horses. We may ha

as raging before us. The clouds parted, and the full moo