I looked over at Moran. He and Wall sat in a corner, looking as grim and savage as possible, while his deadly black eyes had a kind of gloomy fire in them that made him look like a wild beast in a cage.

Mr. Knightley was a man that always had the first word in everything, and generally the best of an argument—putting down anybody who differed from him in a quiet, superior sort of way.

He began now,“Well, my men, I have come down to surrender, and I’m sorry to be obliged to do so. But we have fired our last cartridge—the doctor thought we had a thousand left—in which case, I may as well tell you, you’d never have had this pleasure. Captain Starlight, I surrender my sword—or should do so if I had one. We trust to receive honourable treatment at your hands.”

“I’m sure the Captain will never permit any harm to come to me,” says Mrs. Knightley, with a look in her eyes that, in spite of herself, said a deal more than words. “Why, I danced vis-a-vis to him in a quadrille at the Turon ball.”

“I shall never forget the honour,” says Starlight, walking forward and bowing low. “Permit me to offer you a chair, madam; you look faint.”

As he did so she sank down in it, and really looked as if she would faint away. It wouldn’t have been much wonder if she had after what she’d gone through that night.

Then Mr. Knightley began again. He wanted to know how he stood. He didn’t like the look of Moran and Wall—they were a deal too quiet for him, and he could read men’s faces like a book. The other two prisoners were the German Dr. Schiller—a plucky old chap, who’d been a rebel and a conspirator and I don’t know what all in his own country. He’d seen too much of that kind of thing to trouble himself over much about a trifle of this kind. The old woman was a family servant, who had been with them for years and years. She was a kind of worshipper of theirs, and was ready to live or die with her mistress.

Chapter XLV

CHAPTER XLV