has already undergone his father's fate and is no longer in this world?"

"If the King be dead, indeed," answered Le Gros, "I for one will not
fire a single cartridge. All the same, he was a debonair prince, and
once gave me a groat to drink his health when he saw me holding his
horse."

"That he is a prisoner is certain," croaked Benoist. "And if prisoner to
Maître Cromouailles he can only make his escape through one door. And
that door does not lead to Jersey, though it may to Paradise."

Here the men got up and moved off in search of cider, which was being
served out by the Governor's orders at a neigbouring farm-house. But
their conversation mingled with the young Captain's thoughts as,
wearied with the marchings and countermarchings of the day, he dozed in
the still night air, lulled by the fire at his feet. Deep slumber must
have followed, for he started from dreams of tumult to feel the
vibration of air caused by a round-shot passing over his head. The wind
had fallen to an almost complete calm: a light breeze of autumn morning
breathed keen over the barren moor; bugles were sounding, drums
rattling, men shouting as they collected their accoutrements and fell in
under arms.

Four-and-twenty guns from the nearest ships were playing upon them,
answered briskly by the little militia batteries that lined the bay.
Gunboats began to stand in, laden with red-coated marksmen discharging
their new pattern fire-locks. The militiamen on their part waded into
the sea and gave such answer as they could from their clumsy old
matchlocks: making good the deficiency--so far as noise was
concerned--by shouts of vituperation; and calling on their assailants as