"Let Billy go," Angela half whispered, "and you stay with me. Supposing you went, and the Padre wasn't there, and—and you weren't able to get back. Oh, I couldn't bear that!"
Never had Nick known so exquisite a moment. He was sorry this queer, mysterious accident had happened, because it seemed to reflect somehow on his intelligence and foresight as a guide. And he hated to have Angela distressed. But—after his strivings with jealousy, and his defeat—it was balm that she should depend upon him, and want him with her in this adventure.
"I thought, if worst came to worst, I might find a ladder outside," he said, fearful of betraying his illicit happiness.
"Billy can find a ladder, if there is one," Angela persisted. "There's the most weird, rustling sound, which comes every once in a while, and I can't possibly stand it with only Billy."
Nick could hardly speak for joy, but he managed to reply, "All right; Billy shall be the man to go."
The going was easier to propose than to carry out: for in bygone days, when the Padres of Old Spain were building New Spain, Mission churches had to protect their flocks against the devil incarnate as well as excarnate. Windows were made few and high; and now, when the brave builders sleep, it is nobody's business to worry about the free passage of air. Such windows as San Miguel possesses were hermetically closed that night when Angela di Sereno and Nick Hilliard were imprisoned; and Billy, standing on Nick's shoulders, had to work a few tedious moments before he could induce one of these windows to open. By the time the wiry, slim figure was ready to straddle the window-sill, slip out, dangling, and drop on the grass, night had closed in, fragrant and purple in the open, heavy and black in the church.
Angela came and stood close to Nick. She had never been a timid girl; but since the night when she had lain watching a thief who slowly, slowly raised her window, twelve storeys above the ground, foolish and hitherto unknown terrors crept through her veins if she happened to wake in the dark. And now there certainly was a rustling which stirred the silence, then died, as if it had never been.
"Don't go away from me," she said. "It's so dark that if we're separated we may be ages finding each other."
This sounded like an allegory!
"No, we mustn't be separated," Nick answered, struck by her words, as if by a prophecy. Then he, too, heard the rustling—faint, winged, and mysterious.