Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/177

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thetic, to any one viewing this scene. There were the soldiers with their bristling array of firearms, there was the provost marshal in all the dignity of his office, there were the great bars and bolts and high stone walls of the cavernous hall and—there were the two, slender, shrinking little figures of Mehitable and Charity being marched into court and delivered over with all due formality by their captor to Cunningham!

He looked at them sharply as their names, ages, and home were being carefully recorded in a great book. Then he waved his hand indifferently.

"The Long Room, of course," he said, hiding a yawn and rising to dismiss the guard.

Charity gave a Httle sob as she turned, with Mehitable, to follow the guard appointed to conduct them to their new prison. The "Long Room" sounded ominous indeed to her ears.

"Oh, Hitty!" she moaned under her breath. "Think you we are to be shot?"

Mehitable tried to laugh; but it was a sorry failure, for she, too, was dubious of their future. She had to steady her trembling lips before she could attempt an answer.

"W-why should w-we be?" she stammered, then. "What have w-we done. Cherry?"

"I know not!" wept Charity. "That awful man—Hitty, he's the one—why, he's the one Ebenezer Lamson said had Nathan Hale hung as a spy—taunted him so, Ebenezer did say—and would not let poor Mr. Hale have even a Bible before he was executed! Dost not remember? He is the tyrant, too, who tore up Nathan