In dangers like those against which you could protect me, I have been accustomed from boyhood to trust my own right hand.

But the fear of secret assassination has often unnerved the bravest men, and I will not say that it may not disturb me." "For you," he answered, "personally we should care as for one of our brethren exposed to especial danger, For him who saved the descendant of our Founder, and who in her right, after her father and brother, would be the guardian, if not the head, of the only remaining family of his lineage, one and all of us are at need bound to die." After a few more words we parted, and I rejoined Eunane, and led her back towards the house.

I had learnt to consider taciturnity a matter of course, except where there was actual occasion for speech; but Eunane had chattered so fluently and frankly just before, that her absolute silence might have suggested to me the possibility that she had heard and was pondering things not intended for her knowledge, had I been less preoccupied.

Enured to the perils of war, of the chase, of Eastern diplomacy, and of travel in the wildest parts of the Earth, I do not pretend indifference to the fear of assassination, and especially of poison.

Cromwell, and other soldiers of equal nerve and clearer conscience, have found their iron courage sorely shaken by a peril against which no precautions were effective and from which they could not enjoy an hour's security.