The young soldier again looked at his comrade. Gideon's eyes were now beginning to close, in the excess of his fervour over the pious page. Walking quietly to the protecting bushes, Gerald bent over the parapet as if to look into the stream, and plunging his arm at the same time into the leaves, felt for the packet. After a moment's fear and doubt, he touched it--he drew it forth. By a movement of his head, he saw the old man watching him with increasing agitation; but, giving him another look to re-assure him, Gerald rose from his posture, and was about to conceal the packet in his bandoleer, when it slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. At the noise of the fall, Gideon's eyes again opened, and were lifted up with owl-like sagacity of expression. Gerald's foot was already upon the packet. Neither he nor the old cavalier dared to interchange a look. Gideon's eyes said, as plainly as eyes could speak, that they were not asleep, and had not _been_ asleep, and never intended to go to sleep--in fact, were wonderfully wakeful. Aware that he could not remain motionless upon the spot where he stood, under the full stare of Gideon's eyes, Gerald let fall his musket, as if by accident, and then kneeling with his back to his fellow-sentinel, contrived adroitly to raise the packet at the same time with his musket, and to conceal it upon his person. The prisoner was following his movements with anxious eagerness. Possessed of the precious document, Gerald now felt the impossibility of giving it into his father's hands, as long as the eyes of Godlamb Gideon were upon them. There appeared to him to be but one practicable manner of conveying the desired intelligence contained within it to the prisoner--namely, by examining himself the contents, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicions of his comrade, and then communicating them in low and broken sentences to his father. Placed in such a position as not to be observed by Gideon, he took the packet from his bosom, and making the movement of breaking the fastening, looked imploringly at the old cavalier. The old man comprehended the glance, hesitated for a moment with a look of doubt, and then, clearing his brow with an expression of resolution, as if there were no other means, nodded his head stealthily to the young soldier, and moving to one of the stone benches fixed against the walls of the court, the furthest removed from the spot where Gideon stood, flung himself down upon it, and with his face buried between his hands, seemed absorbed in thought.