Neither of us spoke for a while after this. First I exhausted my ingenuity in vain endeavours to discover some means of raising myself to the window. Then, when I made up my mind that I was doomed to remain a captive, I began to reflect enviously on the superior good fortune of Kitty. The only thing between her and freedom was the trivial difficulty of getting down safely on the other side. Once that was overcome, she would be off, and leave me by myself in this abominable place. I did not at all like the idea of her going. For one thing, I preferred having a companion in misfortune to being solitary. And for another thing, her absence would greatly aggravate my danger, as the penitenciers would be sure to be rendered furious by her having given them the slip, and would vent their wrath upon me. Of course, if she were to fall in with efficient succour, and return before they did, it would be a different matter. But then the chance of that seemed too remote to be worth reckoning on; and I thought it was decidedly more to my interest that she should stay with me than that she should regain her liberty alone.
Why did she sit up there silently without saying anything about her departure? I wondered. Ah! probably she hadn't yet discovered a satisfactory method of managing the descent outside, which she seemed to think difficult. I could tell her how it was to be done, if I chose—but then I wasn't going to chose anything of the kind. If her own wits couldn't show her how to profit by her advantages, then let her stay where she was, and keep me company!
These were the thoughts that first crossed my mind, when I recognised the melancholy fact that I had no chance of escape. Yet, somehow or other, I did not eventually hold my tongue, as I had intended to do, about the means by which her descent might be accomplished. What induced me to change my mind about it I don't exactly know. Perhaps the fancy that I had for her may have been stronger than I realised, and have made it impossible for me to refrain from doing whatever I could to get her out of the power of two such ruffians as César and Napoleon. Or perhaps I may have been influenced by the obvious unreasonableness of allowing two people to be exposed to a danger from which one of them might escape. Anyhow, the upshot of it was that I said—though not without an effort:
"I've thought of a way for you to get down from the window without damaging yourself. We'll tie our dresses, jackets—petticoats too, if need be—into a rope which must be long enough to go through the window and dangle down outside, whilst I keep hold of one end in here. The outside end must have a loop for you to put your feet in; and with the help of that, I'm pretty sure we can make the drop safe. Then, if you should be lucky about falling in with respectable people soon, perhaps you may be able to come back and get me away before the penitenciers reappear in the morning."
As I believed her to be only staying there because she did not know how to get away, I took it for granted that she would be delighted at my suggestion, and be in a desperate hurry to avail herself of it. Instead of that, however, she only said coolly:
"Thank you, Jill; but I think it's perfectly impossible that I should find help and return in time to rescue you, so I don't at all contemplate going off alone, and leaving you to face the indignation of César and Napoleon at my departure. Goodness knows what they wouldn't do to you! No; I was the means of getting you into this scrape, and I don't seem to see leaving you to shift for yourself now. If there's no alternative between deserting you or taking up my abode again inside the chapel—why, I prefer the latter. But it's too soon to despair yet. Having got one of us up here is something; and it won't do to abandon that advantage until we're quite positive that we can't turn it to account. There's your first plan of trying to get enough wood to make a platform—why not take to that again?"
"For two reasons," said I, with a thrill of indescribable happiness and comfort at finding that she was too staunch and plucky for there to be a chance of her deserting me. "In the first place there isn't time, because I should only get on at half the pace by myself that we should have done working together. And besides that, I think that the rottenness of the bier and bars is a conclusive proof that there isn't likely to be any sound wood discoverable here."
"True," she returned. Immediately afterwards she added, exultingly, "What idiots we are! As the men hadn't a key, they can't possibly have locked us in, and there can't be any fastening except the bar across the outside of the door. We never thought of that! As soon as I get down and take away the bar, you can march out without trouble. Off with your dress, and let's make that rope you talked of to let me down with!"
It seems extraordinary that neither of us had remembered this simple solution of the difficulty sooner; yet so it was. Now that it had at last occurred to us, however, we lost no time in going to work. Our garments were instantly put into requisition, and twisted and knotted into as good an imitation of a rope as we could construct out of such materials. The end which had a loop to it was hung out of the window, whilst I retained the other end in my hands, and Kitty, placing her feet in the loop, began to lower herself gently.
As long as she could keep hold of the window her weight was thrown partly on her hands; thus I had not the whole of it to support until during the last few seconds, when, taking her feet out of the loop, letting go of the window, and clinging only to the rope, she descended as near as she could to the ground. I held on to the rope with might and main, till the tension relaxed with a sudden jerk that threw me down, and informed me that she had regained terra firma.