It was cold at that early hour, and he shivered and crept back to bed, thinking that his mother in the apartments of the ladies of honour was no doubt sleeping peacefully, in utter ignorance of the terrible time of trouble to come; and then once more he lay down to think, as others have in their time, how weak and helpless he was in his desires to avert the impending calamity.
“No wonder I can’t sleep,” he muttered; and the next moment he slept. For nature is inexorable when the human frame needs rest, or men would not sleep peacefully in the full knowledge that it must be their last repose on earth.
Five minutes after, his door was softly opened, a figure glided through the gloom to his bedside, and bent over him, like a dimly seen shadow, to catch him by the shoulder.
“Frank! Frank! Here, quick! Wake up!”
The lad sprang back into wakefulness as suddenly as if a trigger had been touched, and all the drowsiness with which he was now charged had been let off.
“Yes; what’s the matter? Who’s there?”
“Hush! Don’t make a noise. Jump up, and dress.”
“Drew?”
“Yes. Be quick!”
“But what’s the matter?”