Falkland, with a sigh, picked up the lantern and walked slowly on, glancing now and then into the high pews where lay the wretched prisoners, roped in couples, and most of them sleeping from sheer fatigue, in spite of hunger and discomfort. Reaching the chancel, he paused for some minutes beside the body of the Major. The dead face, with its majestic calm and its strange smile, contrasted curiously with the faces of the sleeping prisoners. “Happy man!” murmured Falkland. “He is free, and has died for what he deemed his country’s good, like my old friend John Hampden.” Then, with a deep sigh that was almost a groan, he passed on, breathing the cry that was ever now in his heart, and often on his lips, “Peace! peace!” When he entered the vestry he found that the leech had dressed the wounds on Gabriel’s wrists, but had not yet succeeded in reviving the prisoner. “’Tis food the poor fellow stands in need of,” said Tarver-field. “I can testify that he has had nothing since sunrise yesterday, and doubtless little enough since early the day before, for Waller was too busy preparing to attack Devizes.” “With your permission, my lord, I will fetch him food from my own house,” said the surgeon, who, like most of the inhabitants of Marlborough, sympathised with the Parliament. Indeed, since many of the houses had been burnt and plundered in December by the Royalists, and the town had been constantly harassed on market days by bodies of plundering Cavaliers from Oxford, it was natural enough that the feeling was all in favour of the prisoners and against Prince Maurice’s men. “I will wait here,” said Falkland, as the Captain prepared to follow the surgeon, “I wish to speak to the prisoner when he comes to himself.” The Irishman, whose guard had just been relieved, was about to follow Captain Tarverfield, when Falkland detained him, putting a few brief questions as to what he had heard while Lord Harry Dalblane and Captain Norton were with the prisoner. From the replies of the sentry he gathered enough to enable him to judge pretty accurately what had really passed, and when the man had gone he stood beside the unconscious prisoner, watching him intently and with compassion, for he was able to guess at much of his story. Presently he took a small gold pin from his lace cravat, and stooping over the prisoner restored the miniature to its place and pinned together the shirt collar. Gabriel, opening his eyes, looked in bewilderment at the pale, sad-eyed face bending over him; then recognising it as he regained his faculties, sat up and looked round the dimly-lighted vestry in a dazed way. Some one had laid him down on a long wooden chest, the same which the Irishman had rifled for the cope. On the opposite wall hung an old board on which were painted the ten commandments, and the light from the lantern shone specially upon the words, “Thou shalt do no murder.”