The knight stooped, and when again he stood erect, confronting the rebels in that narrow passage, he held a sword in either hand.
There was a momentary pause in the onslaught, then to his dismay Crispin saw the barrel of a musket pointed at him over the shoulder of one of his foremost assailants.

He set his teeth for what was to come, and braced himself with the hope that the King might already have made good his escape.
The end was at hand, he thought, and a fitting end, since his last hope of redress was gone-destroyed by that fatal day's defeat.
But of a sudden a cry rang out in a voice wherein rage and anguish were blended fearfully, and simultaneously the musket barrel was dashed aside.
"Take him alive!" was the cry of that voice.

"Take him alive!" It was Colonel Pride himself, who having pushed his way forward, now beheld the bleeding body of the youth Crispin had slain.

"Take him alive!" roared the old man.

Then his voice changing to one of exquisite agony--"My son, my boy," he moaned.
At a glance Crispin caught the situation; but the old Puritan's grief left him unmoved.
"You must have me alive ?" he laughed grimly.