“Dear Annella, I am all attention,” answered Malcolm, in anxious perplexity.
She looked up and down the roads, and all around them, to see if any person were in hearing, and finding all the way clear, she suddenly clutched the hand of Malcolm, held it with a spasmodic grip, gazed in his face with eager intensity, drew closer to him, and whispered, with breathless vehemence:
“Do just as you would have done if our plan had succeeded.”
“Eh?”
“Make all the arrangements for flight just as you would have made them if the governor could have been bribed to connive at Eudora’s escape.”
“I do not comprehend you. What do you mean?”
“Dullard! I mean this—go secretly and find out some small vessel; hire it, and keep it hovering near this part of the coast ready for service at a moment’s warning; have a little row-boat always at the beach ready to take you to the vessel at an instant’s notice; keep your fast horse tied in the shade of the thicket, under the dead wall, at the back of the gaol; and you yourself walk every night up and down before the front gate of the prison, just as you walked the first night after Eudora’s conviction, and so wait for what fortune shall send you; and then, when you find Eudora standing before you, do not stop to ask how she came there, but catch her up in your arms, run with her to the thicket, place her before you on the horse, gallop to the beach, put her in the boat, row for life to the vessel, and set sail for some foreign port!” said Annella, speaking with breathless excitement.
“Dear, devoted girl, are you really mad?” exclaimed Malcolm, in dismay.
“No,” cried Annella, with startling energy, “only exalted above doubt, fear, and selfishness. Promise that you will do as I request.”
“Well, to make these arrangements will do no harm, though they may do no good. Yes, Annella, I promise,” answered Malcolm, earnestly.