"Not that, idiot!" is the retort, in a sharper voice. "That up above. A thousand fiends! It is the moon!"
A smothered cry breaks from the parched lips of the convict Jem.
He springs to his feet, then falls to the ground with a quiver of excitement.
"Captain, we are lost! In two minutes it will be like day! The soldiers can see every speck on the water for a mile round!"
"Silence!" cries the captain, crouching so motionless that his gray-clad figure looks part and parcel of the rock against which it presses. "The tide is in. That is the smack before us. Swim like the fiend! If we reach it we are safe. I have enough to bribe them. Swim for liberty and life!—now!"
And, with the word, he rises to his feet, leaps over the patch of beach that intervenes between cliff and sea, and plunges into the foremost wave.
His companion follows, and not a moment too soon.
The moon that had been battling with the dark mass of clouds, rises conqueror at last, and swims majestically into the clear heavens, lighting up the sea till it glows like a plain of diamonds.
Not a moment too soon, for the monotonous tramp, tramp of the nearest sentinel upon the ramparts above is suddenly broken, and his sharp voice gives the challenge: