“Damn us for fools!” broke out the captain. “And I’ve dragged ye down to death, boy, for they dassent shoot a Yankee. Davy, blame me. I don’t ask yer to forgive,” and his voice weakened. “I told yer I come to bid the girl good-bye. It’s not the first time this cowardly fool heart o’ mine hes ruined me with others. But after all these useless years o’ my life, to find this yeller girl respond to all the stored-up sorrers—” he broke off, gulping. “Then I am happy to come,” said the Russian with tense slowness, “if for your sake, my captain. It is then not the forgiveness, I owe,” he added bitterly, with set teeth, “but—” and he burst out laughing, shouting—“So there was no place else to hide? As well here as elsewhere might one be taken!” “Boy, I knew ye had no fear of death,” said the captain, laying a hand on Davy’s shoulder. “An’ how I love her—Karin!” He walked to the bright little figure tremblingly preoccupied by the window, and extended his arms. The Russian could stand it no longer. With fierce Slavic impulse, he tore off his disguise with one dash of his arm, and, erect with blazing eyes, checked the captain. “Captain! Fear of death? Never!” he cried. “Because the soldier must think Karin in league with me, a vile spy, I would rather have surrendered myself than come here to hide with her. Yet I go, because you, my friend—dear to me—request, and jealously I think you also love her. You confess, Captain, we have long been esteemed together, and to you I owe more than my life; yet Karin you shall not seize from me, even in the moment of my death. I love her better than my life or your own, or her life. We have long loved. Yet may she love you the more. In this hour, I leave to her to choose between us!” With a cry, the little schoolmistress threw herself into Davy’s outstretched arms, and was smothered in a long embrace. The captain bent his head. “Davy, forgive me,” he whispered after a silence. “I never guessed she was yourn a’ready, else I’d not—I do ask yer forgiveness now.” The spy limped toward the Yankee to press his outstretched hand, and a stone struck the schoolhouse door. “You hear,” laughed Karin, at the window again with woman’s tact, but losing innocence of her lover’s danger. “Major and two soldiers afraid of him. He very brave, but I think soon soldier shoot him. They would come arrest you! You will hide? Go, go upstair! My room!” she cried excitedly, pointing to the spiral. The captain looked out. “Hold yer ground, Gen’ral,” he called. “This ain’t no picnic bitin’ wood thieves. He’ll hold on to the last, Davy. I seen him nip the major’s sword, and wink at me—By crotch, they’re gaggin’ him!” He turned to the lovers. “Go, Davy, go! Up them stairs with her. It’s yer one chance. I’ll face the monkeys and take my medicine. It’s the least I owe yer,” and a vain thought of his cable message and the American gunboat at Chemulpo a hundred miles away flashed through him.