"It is as the good God wills," sighed Rouge, and walked to the door. As he put on his peaked cap he looked back. "Not a word of this to a soul," said he, hoarsely, "or your friend is lost."
"I understand."
"Good. At eight o'clock to-morrow night in the street of Poplaire. There you shall see your friend, and my vengeance."
When the man glided out, Jim turned to the mantelpiece, and rested his forehead on his clasped hands.
"Thank God!" he muttered. "Mallow will be saved. I must tell Olive."
[CHAPTER III.]
"A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE."
In the old-fashioned drama of mediæval complexion, the prisoner--usually the hero of the play--was "haled to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat." The Anarchists of Soho having no castle and no moat, and having moreover other uses for their cellar, so far improved upon this bygone fashion as to sky their prisoners--when they had any. In the present instance Mallow was perched in an attic on the top of the house. The window was overhead, set in the slant of the roof, and the door was kept double-locked. A safer or more isolated cell could not well have been devised. It was impossible to reach the skylight even by standing on the bed; and it would have been a difficult task to break down that four-inch door. Had the prisoner even succeeded in boring through the walls, he could scarcely hope to escape by dropping fifty feet on to the pavement; and let him shout and kick as he would, no one--other than his gaoler--was likely to hear him.
He was absolutely powerless; and his sole comfort lay in the thought that Aldean was carrying on the campaign. When Jim returned he would find that Mallow was missing, and would undoubtedly guess that he was in the power of the Anarchists. If these latter did not kill him in the meantime--as they might, in self-preservation--Aldean would surely apply to the police and have the Soho house searched. Then freedom, and Nemesis upon his enemies.
This was one hope, but there was yet another. Monsieur Rouge, who had brought Mallow's food to him several times, had on one occasion thrown off his revolutionary mask so far as to promise to aid the prisoner's escape. And, although Mallow did not well see how he was to do this--seeing that Rouge had not divulged his scheme,--there was comfort in the thought that, if Aldean should fail, he might succeed. So he resigned himself to the inevitable, and waited.