Giles turned over and lay full-length on the leads, his chin in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the boy. Dick did not reply to the question, not quite understanding it, but he said: "Methinks, Giles, that we took a great deal of trouble this morning for naught." "'Naught' being our friend under the earth there," Giles suggested, waving his hand towards the court. "He was no good to us," Dick said. "Was he not?" Giles said, smiling. "Within a week, he said, we should be dead. He called our walls doomed. He prophesied that His Majesty would hear the guns that shattered Dent. He was good enough to inform us, if you will bend your mind to consider his words, Captain,--he was good enough to inform us that his people had sent for artillery; and he was good enough to add, also, that His Majesty was six miles off, at Lumley. Why, Dick, if we'd learnt all that from a letter, how grateful we'd have been to the man who brought it to us. Prithee, don't scorn it because I acted as bearer." Dick looked at Giles solemnly. "What a wonderful man you are, Giles!" he said simply. "Thanks," said Giles, bowing his head. "The thing is, how shall we act in the matter? We want to know if Dent is worth holding--if His Majesty wants it. How shall we learn?" Dick shook his head blankly. "We cannot," he said. "Oh, tush, my dear fellow!" said Giles scornfully. "Let us think." And he thought, with his eyes fixed on the moon rising over Dick's head. Dick thought too, and was the first to come to a solution of the riddle. "Giles, you were writing a letter to the King--once--in the gate-house--you remember. Someone must carry it to the King quickly." "First fix on the someone," advised Giles. "There's only me and you," Dick said breathlessly. "We'll draw lots," Giles said; "for the reasons for each of us to go and stay are just equal. You are the Captain of Dent, and should stay by the castle. You are the least observable of us, and therefore should go. I might do it swifter, so should go; but there are other reasons why I should stay." He did not state the reasons, the chief of which was that, if help did not come before the Puritan artillery, the one remaining in Dent would be taken and shot. Dick's youth might have been his safeguard; but still, Giles would rather he were safe out of the way. A little tuft of grass was growing in a cranny of the stone coping, and Giles plucked two blades. "These two blades are us, Dick," he said; "the little one's you, and the big one's me." He turned and placed them between his finger and thumb, concealing the ends. "Now, draw," he said, holding his hand out to Dick.