Her breath was coming short and gasping. She saw through an open space old Jasper cross the road at the foot of the tower. Oh, how far! The seconds were treasures which Cromwell, with all his blood-bought commonwealth, could not purchase from her. Up—ah—there, just above her with its great brazen mouth and wicked tongue, the bell hung. A worm eaten block for a step, and one small white had clasped itself above the clapper—the other prepared, at the tremble, to rise and clasp its mate, and the feet to swing off—and thus she waited. Jasper was old and slow, but he was sure and it came at last. A faint quiver, and the young feet swung from their rest, and the tender hands clasped for more than their precious life the writhing thing. There was groaning and creaking of the rude pulleys above, and then the strokes came heavy and strong. Jasper’s hand had not forgot its cunning, nor his arm its strength. The tender, soft form was swung and dashed to and fro. But she clung to and caressed the cold, cruel thing. Let one stroke come and a thousand might follow—for its fatal work would be done. She wreathed her white arms about it, so that with every pull of the great rope it crushed into the flesh. It tore her, and wounded and bruised; but there in the solemn twilight the brave woman swung and fought with the curfew, and God gave her victory. The old bell-ringer said to himself: “Aye, Huldah, my work is done. The pulleys are getting too heavy for my old arms; my ears, too, have failed me. I dinna hear one stroke of the curfew. Dear old bell! it is my ears that have gone false, and not thou. Farewell old friend.” And just beyond the worn pavement a shadowy form again went flitting past him. There were drops of blood upon the white garments, and the face was like the face of one who walked in her sleep, and her hands hung wounded and powerless at her side. Cromwell paused with his horsemen under the dismantled May-pole before the village green. He saw the man who was to die at sunset standing up in the dusky air, tall as a king and beautiful as Absalom. He gazed with knitted brow and angry eye, but his lips did not give utterance to the quick command that trembled on them, for a girl came flying toward him. Pikeman and archer stepped aside to let her pass. She threw herself upon the turf at his horse’s feet; she lifted her bleeding and tortured hands to his gaze, and once more poured out her prayer for the life of her lover; with trembling lips she told him why Richard still lived—why the curfew had not sounded. Lady Maud looking out of her latticed window at the castle, saw the great protector dismount, lift the fainting form in his arms and bear her to her lover. She saw the guards release their prisoner, and she heard the shouts of joy at his deliverance; then she welcomed the night that shut the scene out from her envious eye and sculptured her in its gloom.