"What do you mean, Hartly?"
"That we are reserved for burial alive."
"Alive!"
"Yes—with their king who is just dead. It is the custom here to celebrate the obsequies of royal personages—of kings especially—in a frantic and barbarous manner. Oh, Jack! after all we have seen and suffered together, is it not cruel of fate to persecute and finish us thus? And is it not strange that in this age of a civilized world such things can be?"
"I will fight to the last!" I exclaimed, furiously.
"We have not a single weapon."
"But these female guards have plenty."
"The weakest among them is stronger than both of us put together now," said he, despondingly.
"We must not perish thus, Hartly—we shall escape!" said I, emphatically.
"But how?"