At this time, my prayers were all for safety. 'Safety, good Lord! give them safety! Save them from the executioner? Give them safety?' Thus, as Barnaby said, the shipwrecked mariner clinging to the mast asks not for a green, pleasant, and fertile shore, but for land--only for land. I sat there, musing sadly, the Bible on the table and a lighted candle. I read not in the Bible, but listened to the wailing of the poor soul below, and looked at the churchyard without, the moonlight falling upon the fresh mounds which covered the graves of the poor dead prisoners. Suddenly I heard a voice--a loud and harsh voice--and footsteps. I knew both footsteps and voice, and I sprang to my feet trembling, because I was certain that some new disaster had befallen us. Then the steps mounted the stairs; the door was opened, and Benjamin--none other than Benjamin--appeared. What did he here? He was so big, with so red a face, that his presence seemed to fill the room. And with him--what did this mean?--came Madam herself, who I thought to have been at Exeter. Alas! her eyes were red with weeping; her cheeks were thin and wasted with sorrow; her lips were trembling. 'Alice!' she cried, holding out her hands. 'Child, these terrible things are done, and yet we live! Alas! we live! Are our hearts made of stone that we still live? As for me, I cannot die, though I lose all--all--all!' 'Dear Madam, what hath happened? More misery! More disaster! Oh! tell me! tell me!' 'Oh! my dear, they have been tried--they have been tried, and they are condemned to die--both Robin--my son Robin--and with him Humphrey, who dragged him into the business and alone ought to suffer for both. But there is now no justice in the land. No--no more justice can be had. Else Humphrey should have suffered for all.' There was something strange in her eyes--she did not look like a mother robbed of her children; she gazed upon me as if there was something else upon her mind. As if the condemnation of her son was not enough. 'Robin will be hanged,' she went on. 'He hath been the only comfort of my life since my husband was taken from me, when he was left an infant in my arms. Robin will be hanged like any common gipsy caught stealing a sheep. He will be hanged, and drawn and quartered, and those goodly limbs of his will be stuck upon poles for all to see!' Truly I looked for nothing less. Barnaby bade me look for nothing less than this; but at the news I fell into a swoon. So one who knoweth beforehand that he is to feel the surgeon's knife, and thinks to endure the agony without a cry, is fain to shriek and scream when the moment comes. When I recovered I was sitting at the open window, Madam applying a wet cloth to my forehead. 'Have no fear,' Benjamin was saying. 'She will do what you command her, so only that he may go free.' 'Is there no way but that?' she asked. 'None!' And then he swore a great oath.