“Rash folly, Ben. I’m soldier enough now to know that it would be like throwing away your lives.”
“Humph!” growled Ben; and the officer now in command came up and said, firmly—
“Now, Master Royland, I am sorry to seem harsh with you, but, saving at meal-times, when I shall be glad to see you, I must ask you to keep your chamber till General Hepburn returns, and hold no communication whatever with your fellow-prisoners.”
“Very well, sir,” said Roy, majestically.
“And you, sergeant, go to your fellows and keep with them. You can have an hour in the court-yard every day under guard. March!”
Ben saluted and went to where the corporal, Sam Donny, and the rest were seated on the stone bench in the sun, spoke to them, and they all rose and went through the door-way close at hand; while Roy bowed to the captain stiffly and went through to the private apartments, and thence to his own room, where he shut himself in, and soon after heard a sentry placed at his door, a piece of routine that had for some time been discontinued.
“How suspicious!” muttered Roy. “But no wonder! He doesn’t mean to be caught napping. More didn’t I, but I was. No chance of him having the same luck.”
He went to the window, and the first thing he saw was the dead horse being dragged towards the gate-way, where it was left to wait till the bridge should be lowered again.
“Poor thing! How roughly they are using it!” he thought. “Can’t feel, though, now.”
Then his attention was taken up by seeing old Jenk with his white hair and beard streaming, as he tottered here and there in the sunshine, looking excited and without his weapon.