lie. It is nothing. I am going to tell Sir
Archie."

He was still working with the guns. "Sir
Archie!" she said. He could not hear her for
the noise he was making. "Sir Archie!" she
said, louder, and touched him on the arm to
make him look up.

"Hester!" he said. "Good God! My poor
child!"

"There is a boat and a boatman at the curve
of the bay," she said. "If you are gone, they
will not hurt us. Fly!"

"That is a mistake," he said. "They would
not know I had gone, and they would hurt you
all the same. It will make no difference to
them my being here. It would make all the
difference to you. I will not fly."

The stars had long hidden themselves in
terror. The moon had grown whiter and whiter,
and turned her face away; the bullets from the
castle failed at last; even the buttons from the
men's coats were getting rammed into the guns.
There was the silence of despair within the
castle, till a shriek suddenly arose that the
building was in flames. Steady curling jets of
fire began to arise towards the sky. At the
same time a fresh band of cavalry came dashing
up the road. The captain of this troop pressed
frantically near the walls, and flung himself
from his horse under the eyes of Colonel
Clavering.

"This is a mistake!" cried Pierce Humphrey;
"a devilish, detestable mistake! This is a loyal
household. I tell you it is a hideous mistake.
All I hold dear; the woman I love; an English-
woman—English, I tell you—is shut up in these
burning walls. Call off your men!" stamping
at the colonel—"call off your wolves, your
hell-hounds!"

"They are hell-hounds," said Clavering, " and
they will not be called off. These mistakes are
common. Save whom you can."

Breaches had now been made in the castle.
Terror-stricken creatures came flying out upon
the bayonets that were waiting for them. Pierce
Humphrey and a band of his men pressed in
upon an errand of mercy. Other soldiers pressed
in whose errand was not mercy. The triumph
of the night were not complete unless the marked
man, whose death had been the stake for which
this noble game was played, were handsomely
treated to torture, and most certainly given
to death. So the soldiers braved the flames,
and pressed in.

Sir Archie was still at his forlorn post. It
seemed that he did not know yet that the castle
was burning. Nor did Hester, who stood by
his side, rending iron buttons from a pile of
garments that lay at her feet, and handing
them over to Sir Archie as sorry food for the
guns. They two were alone in the room. All
their companions were either killed or had fled.

The door was burst open, and a group of
soldiers dashed in. The wind that came with
them blew out the light in the room. Hester
shrank back in horror, and retreated, with her
hands spread before her, till she reached the
furthest wall of the chamber. It was an old-
fashioned, long, low bedroom, and the walls
were hung with silk. Hester's hand came
against the loose hangings, and by instinct or
inspiration she crept in behind their folds.

There was a terrible confusion in her head
for some moments, but she knew pretty well
that Sir Archie had been seized. She heard the
soldiers cursing at the darkness, and one of
them pulled away the barricading from the
window. He fell as he did so by a shot from
without. Now the flames, which seemed to
have been licking round the roof, curled inward
through the open window and caught the wood-
work of the room. The shock of the sudden
light restored Hester to her senses. She heard
the soldiers jeering aud exulting over Sir
Archie.

"We'll not cut him off in his sins," said one.
"He'll have time to say his prayers."

"A fine easy death," said another; "not a
scrape on his skin."

And by-and-by she knew they had taken themselves
off—out of the burning room. She stepped
out from her hiding-place into the glare. Sir
Archie was tied with strong cords, bound hand
and foot, on the floor. The fire was creeping
near him. They had left him so to its will. A
few fierce vain struggles, a few bitter groans,
and then Hester feared he had swooned. Not
so; for he felt her soft hand moving about him,
passing over his shoulders, and under his arms,
and round his neck, as with swift sharp snaps
she cut the cords away from his limbs. In a
few more moments he was on his feet, safe by
her side. He had taken her into his arms close
to his heart—there, in the glow of the burning
room. But that was only folly when there was
not a moment to be lost.

"Come quickly!" said Hester. "That boat
may be waiting yet!"

LEAVES FROM THE MAHOGANY TREE.

MAKING GAME OF A VERY SERIOUS SUBJECT.

THERE is a club tradition that the lord-
lieutenant of one of the western counties, in
the reign of the good and great (corporeally
great) George the Fourth, used to devour a
whole covey of partridges for breakfast every
day during the season. It positively took the
entire time of an able-bodied Somersetshire
gamekeeper and two well-bred pointers to
supply the honourable gentleman's morning meal
alone. Metaphorically speaking, the honourable
gentleman was pelted constantly with roast
partridges, which he caught in his ravening
jaws just as a French poodle would macaroons.
There never was so hearty an eater, except
Brillat-Savarin's friend, who, for the first
time in. bin life being treated to his satiety
of green oysters, ate eighteen dozen as a whet,
and then, finding his appetite not a bit the
better, began his dinner in disgust—like Mr.
Hayward's Scotchman, of the rigorous viscera,
after a tough old Solan goose.