Jacqueline of the Carrier Pigeons

by Augusta Huiell Seaman

THE EAVESDROPPERS AND THE PLOT

Gysbert did not keep his sister long in doubt as to the use he proposed to make of Alonzo de Rova's Toledo blade. The first thing he did caused her considerable wonder and not a little alarm. In one corner of the room he pried up the tiles of the flooring for the space of a square foot, and cut away the planking underneath, leaving nothing but some thin lath and plaster between them and the room below.

"Oh, Gysbert! what art thou doing?" asked Jacqueline in distress. "We will be discovered and all will be lost!"

"Not at all!" said Gysbert as he covered up his work by carefully replacing everything he had removed. "No one will suspect what I have done, and through this hole we can listen to much that goes on below. We may hear something worth while if we listen hard enough! But that is only one thing I intend to do with this valuable weapon. Let me show thee to what other use it may be put!" He went to the window, reconnoitered long and carefully to see that no one was near, and then commenced to file away at one of the iron bars, digging carefully into the wood in which it was imbedded, and using every effort to dislodge it from the socket in which it was set.

"This will be a long and tedious piece of work," he remarked. "There are three thick bars, each set stoutly in woodwork nearly as hard as iron itself, and we want to do this work so carefully that it will not be noticeable should anyone enter the room. Each bar will have to be loosened both top and bottom, and I know not how long it will take us. We will work as constantly as we can, and I doubt not in time we shall be free as the birds, as far as this window is concerned. 'Tis a good thing the blade is sharp and enduring!"

"Yes, but even so," demurred Jacqueline, "what are we going to do when the bars are loosed? To be as free as the birds, as thou sayest, we must have wings, for we are fully twenty feet from the ground!"

"There are many ways to get out of a window, Jacqueline, as thou wouldst know if thou hadst climbed in and out of one as many times as I have! But that too will all come in good season, and meanwhile we must work away at the bars." Hope,—even vague and indefinite hope,—lends wings to the soul and zest to the brain and hands. This faint glimmer that had been cast across the blackness of the two children's prospects so filled their hearts with its brightness that they were almost gay, as they sawed away on the stout iron bars. They would have shouted and sung, had not that performance surely encouraged unwelcome attention in their direction.

That same night Gysbert removed the tiles and piece of plank from the hole he had dug in the flooring. Leaning over it the children strove to gather, from any sounds they might hear, what was going on beneath them. It was destined that they should hear something that night which while it enlightened them upon several points hitherto inscrutable, served in no way to add to their peace of mind. The room just under theirs was evidently one that was not often used, for it seemed to be dark and deserted. Presently however, a light shown through the cracks in the ceiling, someone was heard moving about, and voices whispered words that could not be distinguished. At length the sentence, "He is even now coming!" penetrated up through the ceiling, and there was another silence. Then the neighing of horses was heard outside. A loud tramping of heavily shod feet resounded on the wooden floors, the door of the room below opened, and three people entered.