scalped the dying, since hair was valuable. Likewise, with their surgical instruments they wrenched the teeth, also valuable, out of dying or dead men's heads; while, if the wounded were still able to protect themselves, they played another part, that of the Good Samaritan, and offered them a drink of Nantz or usquebaugh, which generally finished the business, since it was usually poisoned. Along a road between Venloo and Grave, over which a dyke had overflowed from the heavy rains, so that the horses passing over it were fetlock deep in mud, there went now a vehicle, or, rather, rough country cart, springless and having for shelter nothing but a rough covering of coarse tarred canvas supported on bent lathes. Seated on the shaft of this cart was an old man who, out of tenderness for the value of the beast that drew it, if not for the beast itself, never proceeded at any but the slowest pace possible. Inside, under the awning or cover, were Sylvia and Madame de Valorme, who, as is now apparent, had managed to escape out of Liége. Yet it had been hard to do, and doubly hard to these two women, who, the soul of honour, had to deal with one other--De Violaine--who was himself a mirror of honour and loyalty. And still they had done it. In common with many other escapes recorded in past and even present days, theirs had been accomplished in the most simple manner, namely, by simplicity itself. Indeed, captives who, with their appearance unknown to their warders, had walked out of their prisons, both before and after this time; men who had been known to stroll out of such places as the Bastille, or Vincennes, or Bicêtre, and sometimes from English prisons and lockups, as well as he who, on the road to the guillotine, had escaped by the simple device of dropping out of the back of the _charrette_ and then crying "_Vive la Revolution!_" and "_À bas les aristocrats!_" had not done so more easily than had these two women. Only, it had taken time for Sylvia and the Comtesse to arrange their plans, and time, they soon knew, was of all things the most precious. For De Violaine, who had one morning come down to the Comtesse de Valorme from the citadel with a view to asking her why she had jeopardised her own freedom by espousing the desires of the Englishman, had confessed that, though Bevill could not at present be brought to trial, his peril was still extreme. "De Boufflers is here," he said; "he has come to draw off all troops that can be spared, as well as to examine the state of defence in which Liége is." "To draw off the troops!" the Comtesse and Sylvia both exclaimed, while the latter felt her heart sink within her at his words. "Is Lord Marlborough not coming?"