'Brother,' he asked the Sergeant, 'we have been lying hid for a fortnight, and have heard no news. Tell me, how go the hangings?'

'Why, Captain,' the fellow replied with a grin, 'in this respect there is little for the rebels to complain of. They ought to be satisfied, so far, with the attentions paid to them. Lord Feversham hanged twenty odd to begin with. Captain Adlan and three others are trussed up in chains for their greater honour; and, in order to put the rest in good heart, one of them ran a race with a horse, being promised his life if he should win. When he had beaten the horse, his Lordship, who was ever a merry man, ordered him to be hanged just to laugh at him. And hanged he was.'

'Ay,' said Barnaby, 'thus do the Indians in America torture their prisoners first and kill them afterwards.'

'There are two hundred prisoners laying in Weston Zoyland church,' the Sergeant went on; 'they would have been hanged, too, but the Bishop interfered. Now they are waiting to be tried. Lord! what signifies trial, except to give them longer rope?'

'Ay, ay; and how go things in Bridgwater and Taunton?'

'From Weston to Bridgwater there is a line of gibbets already; in Taunton, twenty, I believe, have swung—twenty, at least. The drums beat, the fifes played, and the trumpets sounded, and Colonel Kirke drank to the health of every man (such was his condescension!) before he was turned off. 'Twould have done your heart good, Captain, only to see the brave show.'

'Ay, ay,' said Barnaby, unmoved; 'very like, very like. Perhaps I shall have the opportunity of playing first part in another brave show if all goes well. Hath the Duke escaped?'

'We heard yesterday that he is taken somewhere near the New Forest. So that he will before long lay his lovely head upon the block. Captain, your friends have brought their pigs to a pretty market.'

'They have, Brother; they have,' replied Barnaby, still with unmoved countenance. 'Yet many a man hath recovered from worse straits than these.'

I listened with sinking heart. Much I longed to ask if the Sergeant knew aught of Robin; but I refrained, lest merely to name him might put the soldiers on the look-out for him, should he, happily, be in hiding.