"What figure I cut you may imagine. Wet, cold, dishevelled, my face and hands and clothes all bemired, I crawled as best I might from the cart, and staggered to the house where the duke was quartered. There was a sentry at the door: when I said I wished to see the duke he flouted me, laughed in my face, and was for turning me away. But I was in no mood to be delayed. I took from my tunic the sodden letter of General van Santen, and showed it to the fellow, bidding him on peril of his life to stay me. ’Twas enough: he called to a servant; they talked together, eyeing me as though I were some sorry cur: then the man roughly bade me follow him, and within a little I stood in a small chamber, looking with dazed eyes at the man seated at a table there: ’twas my lord Marlborough himself." "A letter from General van Santen, my lord." Marlborough looked up as the servant spoke, but did not straighten himself from his bent position at the table, nor remove his hands from the pair of compasses that were stretched on the map there outspread. Several officers were grouped about him; at a smaller table sat a gentleman dealing with a mass of correspondence. "Mr. Cardonnel," said the duke briefly; then resumed his discussion with the officers. The secretary turned sideways and took the letter. He broke the seal, ran his eye hurriedly over the paper, then laid it on the table. "It shall be looked to," he said, and bent again to his writing. Harry stood for a moment; all his blood seemed to run cold. Then, his whole body a-tingle, he stepped forward. "Pardon me, sir, the matter is most urgent; ’tis a case of life or death. If you would be so good as to lay the letter at once before my lord——" Mr. Cardonnel turned and stared with a sort of scornful wonder at the dishevelled, bedraggled object who addressed him in an English and a cultivated accent. "’Tis too late. My lord’s despatch left last night; the man will be shot in a few hours; the matter must e’en take its course." "Sir, may I beg of you——" Harry’s voice, unknown to himself, was raised to a tone of passionate entreaty. "My lord——" "What is it, Mr. Cardonnel?" asked Marlborough. "General van Santen, my lord, asks the pardon of the deserter Minshull, sentenced by court-martial to be shot. ’Tis too late." "Write and tell the general so, and be done with it." "My lord," broke in Harry, "do but read the general’s letter. I have rid and run all night to deliver it; the execution will not yet have taken place, and I know well——" "Who are you, sir?" The duke looked puzzled at the discrepancy between the tone of voice and the disreputable appearance of the youth before him. "My name is Rochester, my lord, the letter—I entreat your lordship to read it—will tell the rest." Marlborough signed to the secretary, received the letter from his hand, and read it quickly. It was not long, and the last paragraph read as follows:—