She started at the sudden question. But, brutal as it must have sounded, she was looking at me in pity so great and generous that it did not wound her. "Oh, yes," she said, her eyes still clinging to me. "I think he will live, thank Heaven!" Thank Heaven! Ah, yes, thank Heaven! I turned and went slowly toward the door. But before I reached it she was at my side, nay, was on her knees by me, clasping my hand, looking up to me with streaming eyes. "What are you going to do?" she cried, reading, I suppose, something in my face. "I will see if Master Lindstrom cannot get better terms for us," I answered. She rose, still detaining me. "You are sure?" she said, still eying me jealously. "Quite sure," I answered, forcing a smile. "I will come back and report to you." She let me go then, and I went out and joined Lindstrom on the staircase. "Are you certain," I asked, speaking in a whisper, "that they will--that the town will keep its word and let the others go?" "I am quite sure of it," he replied nodding. "They are Germans, and hard and pitiless, but you may trust them. So far I will answer for them." "Then we accept," I said gravely. "I give myself up. Let them take me." CHAPTER XV. BEFORE THE COURT. I had not seen the first moonbeams pierce the broken casement of the tower-room, but I was there to watch the last tiny patch of silver glide aslant from wall to sill, and sill to frame, and so pass out. Near the fire, which had been made up, and now glowed and crackled bravely on the hearthstone at my elbow, my three jailers had set a mattress for me; and on this I sat, my back to the wall and my face to the window. The guards lounged on the other side of the hearth round a lantern, playing at dice and drinking. They were rough, hard men, whose features, as they leaned over the table and the light played strongly on their faces, blazoning them against a wall of shadow, were stern and rugged enough. But they had not shown themselves unkindly. They had given me a share of their wine, and had pointed to the window and shrugged their shoulders, as much as to say that it was my own fault if I suffered from the draught. Nay, from time to time, one of them would turn from his game and look at me--in pity, I think--and utter a curse that was meant for encouragement.