"Wha are they?" asked a voice; but to this there was no answer, for the cavalcade was almost upon us. Just as it came to the Port of Vennel the officer turned in his saddle and rapped out a few words of command. The company divided into two, the front half coming to a halt, and I saw that tied to the stirrup leather of one of the troopers was a man. Wheeling to the right, without pause, the second half of the company continued its march. The crowd broke and ran across the intervening space to catch a closer glimpse of the female prisoner. Almost against my will I was carried on by the surge of the people. I could not see the woman’s face, but the sunlight fell upon her hair, and--God in heaven! it was chestnut brown, and over her forehead, where the light struck it, it shone like burnished gold. My heart shouted within me, but something--was it the finger of God?--was laid upon my lips and they were still. Rudely flinging men and women aside, I sprang forward that I might see the woman’s face. It was Mary in very deed--Mary, in the hands of the persecutors, beautiful as a flower, pride in the poise of her head, courage in her dauntless eyes. *CHAPTER XLI* *IN THE HANDS OF THE PERSECUTORS* I reined in the impulse that seized me to spring forward and attempt a rescue. That way lay madness, and the failure of all hope to effect my purpose. If I adventured it I knew that I should be shot down like a dog and that Mary would go to her fate unsuccoured. Wisdom lay in waiting to see how events would shape themselves. If, at the last, I found that Mary was being taken to Christie’s Mount to be martyred on one of the gibbets there, then I should not stand quietly by and see a merciless vengeance wreak itself upon her. If I could not rescue her, I should die with her. I mixed with the crowd again and was borne onward as it surged up the Vennel. In the press I was thrust so near to Mary that, had I stretched out my hand, I could have touched her, and though my eyes sought her face and feasted upon it, I tore myself away lest she should see me and in a moment of recognition betray us both. The cavalcade breasted the hill up to the High Street and as we went the crowd grew as every shop door added its unit. Here and there a high window was thrown open suddenly and the head of a man or woman would appear, with eyes downcast, to see what was going on in the street below. More than once I heard a word of pity fall from unseen lips. The company swung into the High Street. Eager new-comers thrust themselves forward and broke the line of my vision so that it was difficult to keep Mary in sight, but I watched for the aureole of gold set among her chestnut hair, and seeing it my heart beat high again.