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Rh raised his hand to his head;—every carbine was raised too, in preparation; and the sudden rise of the steel tubes flashed like some strange meteor in the sun.

"God save King Charles!" exclaimed the reckless cavalier and flung his white plumed hat in the air.

A loud burst of musketry rang far away into the distant forest; many echoes took it up, and repeated the mimic thunder; a strange screaming rose from the startled birds;—but loud above them all was heard the shriek of a woman.

Lucy, rousing from her sleep, as the morning light fell upon her face, had sought her own chamber; she had entered unperceived by Francesca, who was kneeling in that last horror of having to look on a violent death. Approaching her friend, she was startled by the report of the carbines—scarcely aware of her own act, she had looked from the lattice, and saw Major Johnstone standing in the cold triumph of gratified revenge beside the body of a cavalier, whose life-blood was welling in a crimson flood to his feet. At a glance Lucy recognised Francis Evelyn.