“Marsan!” cried Fronsac, “you go too far!”
But the girl took her hands from before her face and stopped him with a gesture.
“No,” she said quite calmly, “M. de Marsan is right! I thank him for his frankness. No daughter of the Comte de Cadillac could be a coward! I am ready, Monsieur!”
My heart warmed with admiration of her as she advanced quite steadily to the cliff’s edge, sat down without shrinking, and adjusted her feet within the loop.
“That is good,” I said. “There is no danger whatever, Mademoiselle, so long as you hold the rope firmly and keep your face to the rock. Come, my friend.”
I could see her shudder as we swung her out over the abyss, and I admit that my own nerves were not wholly steady, but she held tightly to the rope and in an instant was out of sight. Down and down we lowered her slowly and carefully, I keeping an eye on Roquefort, meanwhile, to see that he essayed no mischief. But he sat quite still on the step where I had placed him, seemingly only half-conscious, and watched us with bloodshot eyes. Yet I was certain that some catastrophe was hanging over us. There had been an ominous silence for some moments at the tower door, but I knew that his men would not abandon him so tamely. What trick they were preparing I could not even guess, but at last the weight lifted from the rope, and we knew that Mademoiselle, at least, was safely down.
“What next, my friend?” asked Fronsac. “What of him?” and he glanced at Roquefort. “Has he not lived long enough?”
I looked at him as he sat drivelling there. Yet I had thought never to kill a man but in a fair fight. And on the instant a sudden inspiration flashed into my brain.
“I have it!” I cried. “We will lower him down the cliff! We will take him prisoner to M. le Comte to deal with as he chooses! There would be a vengeance for you!”
I could see the dare-devil in Fronsac take fire at the words. In a moment he had pulled up the rope, and we were knotting it under Roquefort’s arms. He resisted vaguely, weakly, like a drunken man, but we dragged him to the edge and pushed him over. He cried out hoarsely as he fell, and I thought for a breath that his weight would drag us over with him, but the rope caught in a crevice of the rock and gave us time to brace ourselves. Then we lowered him rapidly, rasping and scraping against the cliff, but there was no time to think of that. At last the rope hung taut.