“Go!” cried Fronsac, waking as from a dream. “Go whither, Marsan?”
I pointed to the open door—the rope.
“And you have opened it?” he asked, amazed. “What witchcraft!”
“We must hasten,” I said. “They are preparing some surprise for us over our heads yonder. Come. We will knot one end of this rope so that Mademoiselle can place her feet in it. Then, standing erect and steadying herself by holding to the rope, we will lower her quite safely to the ground.”
I had made the loop even as I was speaking, and threw it a little over the cliff edge.
“Come, Mademoiselle,” I said again.
But she drew back with a shuddering cry as she saw the abyss that yawned before her.
“Oh, no!” she cried. “Not that! That is too fearful! I can never do that!”
It was not a time for soft words. Our lives could not be sacrificed to a woman’s nerves, and I steeled my heart.
“Mademoiselle,” I said, “you are holding all our lives in your hand. In a moment a crowd of ruffians will be through that door up yonder—then it will be too late! No daughter of the Comte de Cadillac could be a coward!”