“You hear me--hold out your hands!” he commanded in a voice that would have been a credit to Captain Laroque himself. She gazed up at him with her calm defiance; then the lips slowly parted, and a dazed, marvelling look came into the gray old eyes. Then her face was as calm as before. Slowly she stretched out her thin white wrists. Her legs were not put in chains. They were already sufficiently shackled by disease. With a show of roughness, but with infinite care, Drexel lifted the frail figure from the bed and placed it in the chair. Then he wheeled her into the corridor. The dungeon of Razoff was next entered. To him, too, Drexel covertly revealed himself; and a few minutes later, irons on hands and feet, he was waiting in the corridor beside The White One. Thus far all had gone with the smoothness of a wish. The governor now unlocked a third door. “Here are the condemned ones--all together,” said he. They entered, followed by the guards. In the days before the Fortress had become a political prison, this gloomy dungeon had been a casemate, and the one window through the five feet of solid masonry had been the embrasure through which had looked forth the muzzle of a great cannon. Beneath the window, on the bed, her brother’s arm about her, sat Sonya. Drexel’s heart gave a leap. His feverish gaze saw naught but her. “Get ready there!” ordered the governor. From out a shadowy corner sprang a third figure. “You’ve come at last! I’m ready!” Drexel’s breath suddenly stopped. His blood seemed all to leave him, and he seemed to turn to ice. “I’m ready! Come on!” cried Freeman eagerly. “Now don’t you be afraid I’ll overlook you,” the governor grimly reassured him. “But I don’t want you yet.” “What!” cried Freeman. “Hasn’t the order for my release from prison come yet?” “The order that is going to release you from prison and everything else--yes.” “But my pardon? My reprieve?” Freeman took a quick step forward and pointed a finger at Drexel. “Are you sure he hasn’t got it?” “No. Be quiet, will you!” and the governor gave him a push. Sonya had been looking at Freeman in questioning surprise. “The order for your release?” she now asked. “Oh, we all entertain hope to the last,” he said, and retreated into his corner. Drexel took breath and hope into himself. If he kept silent, if he kept in the shadow, he might go unrecognized by Freeman and there might yet be a chance. He guessed Freeman’s reason for being here, but he saw the governor was not a confidant of the plan. Colonel Kavelin turned to the gray-garbed brother and sister. “You two are the ones I want.” “Our execution was set for four,” said Borodin. “Is not our life short enough, without your stealing an hour from it?” “I suppose,” said Sonya, “that the gallows grows impatient.”