"How deep is it down to the lane?" she asked, for the moon had gone behind the cloud, and she was looking into blackness. "I'm afraid to drop."
"Then don't. Make as much room for me as you can," Heinrich whispered up to her. "I'll climb up and let you down easily."
Before many seconds had passed he had scrambled up, and was squeezing his body between her and the wall, crushing her against the side of the deep opening, but chuckling at his success. But he stopped, and almost roughly he pushed past Margaret and dropped into the lane.
She understood, and her hair seemed to lift and her heart to stand still, for from the cell from whence she had just been lifted came the sounds of dropping bars and the turning of a lock.
"Quick, for the love of Heaven!" Heinrich called to her in a whisper. "Drop into my arms. They are strong, and I will catch you!"
She moved on the instant and fell into the strong arms of the man below. He caught her as though she had been no weight at all, and before he set her on her feet he carried her across the lane into the dark shadows, where they could not be seen, and then he put her down.
"Come with me," he panted, out of breath; and, taking her hand, he ran with her, on and on, now down the lane, and always keeping in the dark, now through a gateway and across a garden belonging to one of the city merchants, down a narrow alley where, if they had gone side by side, Margaret would have scraped her arms against the wall, then across a broad street, deserted save by the City Guard, whose measured step sounded and whose gleaming halberds could be seen as they passed a huge bonfire which blazed in the market-place to allay infection, since the Burgomaster and City Fathers feared the coming of the plague.
Heinrich did not pause, and Margaret, longing to escape the clutches of the Inquisitors, never asked him where he was taking her. The thought which absorbed her was liberty; and that remembrance of the sound of the shooting bolts and the fear that the Familiars, when they found that she was gone, would pursue her, using the window as she had done, made her feel that she would go anywhere, yes, anywhere, rather than fall into their cruel hands.
"On, Heinrich, on! I hear them coming!" she exclaimed, when her companion slackened his pace a little, and, still holding him by the hand, she went beyond him and dragged him forward. "Oh, do not lag behind!" she added, panting.
"The danger is gone now," the other said, detaining her. "They do not see us, and they have no notion as to the way we took. I am taking you to a place where they will never find you."