Carna meanwhile had been busy ministering to the needs of the wounded, and was scarcely aware of the true position of affairs, the room in which she was at work not commanding a view of the space in which the struggle was going on. Chancing, however, to leave it for a moment in search of something which she wanted for her work, she saw what had taken place. In a moment her resolution was taken. During the siege her thoughts had been taken up, not with the danger to herself and the other inmates of the villa, but with the terrible fact that Britons were fighting against Britons. Long before she would have attempted to put an end to their cruel strife, if she had seen any hope of success. She would not have hesitated risking her life in the attempt. Indeed she had proposed to Martianus that she should go with a party bearing a flag of truce, and seek an interview with the hostile commander. He had met her with a courteous and peremptory refusal, and she had been compelled to acquiesce. But now it seemed to her that her chance was come. Taking advantage of the pause in the struggle, she ran between the combatants, and threw herself on her knees with her face towards the assailants. A murmur of astonishment and admiration ran through both the ranks. She seemed to be a visitor from another world, so strange, so unexpected, and, at the same time, so beautiful was her appearance. “Britons, brothers,” she cried, in a sweet but penetrating voice, which made itself heard through the throng, “what is this? Britons, brothers, have you forgotten what you are? Your masters have left you. You carry arms which have been forbidden to you for more than four hundred years, and must you first use them against your own countrymen? Have you no enemies abroad that you must look for them at home?” A shriek of terror, followed by a wild war cry, which, though strange to many of the crowd, was only too familiar to the dwellers on the coast, gave a fearful emphasis to her words. The enemies from without were there. CHAPTER XXIX. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.