"I see, I see," said the King. "Well, then, as you are in a hurry, my dear young lady, we will draw out the paper." On this the King, with several members of the royal family, attended by Mabel and Mr. Kyffin, entered the castle by the side door. The King walked rapidly on through several passages till he entered his private room. Sitting down at a desk he began to write, the rest of the party standing at a respectful distance round him. "There, my dear young lady, this, I believe, will have its effect," he observed, as he finished the papers and handed them to Mabel. "You will not lose them, eh? The one you can send on board the ship and the other to the minister. He will attend to my request, I hope. Now speed ye well, and God bless you." CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE PRISON SHIP.--THE GREAT MINISTER.--A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. Some way up the Thames lay a large hulk. Her decks were housed in, her hulk was black; she bore but little resemblance to the stout ship she had once been, except from the ports which were to be seen on either side. They were very thickly grated. It was the prison ship. Low down in one of the dark cells below the water-line, with manacles on his ankles, lay Harry Tryon. His cheeks had become pale, his eye had lost much of its brightness, but hope had not altogether died within him. Still he was fully sensible of the dangerous position in which he was placed. He had become of late a wiser and a sadder man than he had ever been before. Still as day after day passed by and no friends came near him, his spirits sank lower and lower. "Have they all deserted me?" he said to himself, clasping his hands. "Mr. Kyffin would not, I am sure, and Mabel--she knows nothing of my desperate state. Would that I had written to her. Some effort might have been made to save me; but I could not bear the thought of writing to her as a felon, to let her hand touch the paper smelling of this foul prison. Better far that I should die unknown. When the wretched Andrew Brown is run up to the yard-arm there will be no one to mourn him, and Harry Tryon may disappear without a stain of disgrace upon the name." He attempted to rise--he could do so with difficulty--to take a few turns up and down the narrow cell. Scarcely ever was he left in silence. There was the ripple of the water against the ship's side; above him the steps of other prisoners as they, like him, paced to and fro. Now and then there were shouts and cries of men driven to despair by their approaching fate, others singing and shouting with careless indifference. It was weary work, that prison walk, for the chains were heavy. The gyves hurt his legs. Again he sat himself down, and clasped his hands upon his knees. "Death! death will be welcome!" he exclaimed, "the only termination to my misery and shame."