Page:True stories of girl heroines.djvu/140

116 "You are old enough to have the ready wit of a woman!" cried James; yet even in his stress of feeling and excitement he kept his voice pitched in a low key. "I have thought and thought and planned, but everything falls to the ground; or we are betrayed into the hands of our enemies, and threatened with stricter captivity than this. Elizabeth, put your wits to work! Can you think of nothing? In bygone days it has been the women sometimes who have done the thinking, whilst the men have done the acting. Why should it not be so now?"

The boy's dark, strenuous face looked earnestly into the fair spiritual one of his sister, and into the cheeks of the young Elizabeth a faint colour stole.

"Oh, Jamie, I will try: I will try!" she answered. "But even could I think of some stratagem or plan by which you could gain the freedom of the world without, who is there outside that would dare to help you away across the sea, whom we could dare to trust with such a secret?"

"There is Colonel Bamfield," answered James promptly. "He is the man whom I would trust for that."

"Colonel Bamfield?" echoed Elizabeth doubtfully. "He who turned traitor to our father's cause when all was lost? Would you trust such an one as he?"

"He is not a traitor at heart," whispered James