Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/285

 and to be talking in low tones; but the briskness of their pace and their air of strung activity proclaimed that they had some definite end in view. For the moment I had not the remotest notion what this end could be, but while I stood at gaze and musing to discover it, a horrible idea crept into my brain. Surely nothing could be more unnatural than two sworn enemies working harmoniously together towards a common end, if that end was peace? But was it peace? In a convulsion of alarm I recalled the incidents of that hateful night, and amongst them was the calculated blow which surely the prisoner was the last man in the world to take with meekness. I then remembered the Captain's prophetic "One of us may," and at once attached to it a most sinister significance. Having reached this dark conclusion, my first desire was to defeat their wicked purposes. I cloaked myself at once for another night excursion, and having done so stole down the stairs as formerly, opened the great hall door with wondrous care, then peered ahead to discern the course of the receding lanterns.