it, but little personal concern.

"Yes; and it's a short walk from here to the last yard[26] we crossed. It usually happens there." And the jailer made a suggestive downward sweep with his arm.

[26]

"Axe or sword?" asked Herrick.

"Sword. Unless they decide to make an especial example in your case, then they're likely to hang you over the great gateway."

"Am I sufficiently important for that, think you?"

"I've known a dead sparrow on a string scare away much finer birds," the jailer answered; "but at any rate you're no white-livered man, and I shouldn't grieve to see you cheat both sword and rope."

"Thanks for your good will," said Herrick. "Who knows, I may live to speak a comforting word to you. I will be honest with you, I had not appreciated the full extent of the lady's humor."

With something like a salute, deference to the prisoner's courage, the jailer departed, and the key grated harshly in the lock as the bolts shot home.

High up near the roof there was a deep-set window through which the moonlight came. The tower could not be shut in by high walls, therefore, and probably was one of the outer towers of the castle. From that window possibly a prisoner might look into a free world, reach it, perhaps, if age had worn the bars loose in their stone sockets. A moment later Herrick felt certain that only this single wall held him from freedom, for the music of the carillon burst upon his ears. His fancy made the moonbeams the path along which the music travelled. But the window was unattainable. The rounded walls were almost as smooth as if the surface had been polished, and the cell was bare of everything but the heap of straw in the comer.

"My first night in Vayenne," he muttered, and some of the bravery with which he had addressed the jailer[27] was wanting. The moonlight was upon his face as he spoke, a serious face just now, although neither hopelessness nor despair was in it. It could hardly be called a handsome face, yet it was one to remember. They were good, steady eyes, and if the nose and mouth were not an artist's ideals of beauty, in the whole face the artist would have found attraction. It was strong, forceful, fashioned in an uncommon mould; it was a face apart 

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