I knelt down, and getting my fingers underneath the edge, easily raised it up, when I beheld another staircase precisely similar to that which we had ascended, and which, passing round and round the tower, exactly followed all the spires of the other, thus forming a double staircase through the whole building. My pretty companion now tried whether she could herself move the stone; and finding that she could do so with ease, as it was scarcely thicker than a slate, she followed me down, and drew it in the manner of a trap-door over us. The whole reminded me so much of my flight with the unhappy Viceroy of Catalonia, that I hurried my steps as much as possible, with the remembrance vivid before my mind's eye, of the dreadful scene with which that flight was terminated.
"We are safe now, monseigneur," said my fair guide, with a naïvete which some men might have mistaken for coquetry: "by your leave, we will not go so fast, for I lose my breath."
"If we are safe then, my pretty preserver," replied I, taking a jewel from my finger, which I had bought a few days before for a different purpose, "I have time to thank you for your activity in saving me, and to beg your acceptance of this ring as a remembrance."
"I will not take it myself, my lord," replied she; "but, with your leave, I will give it to Jean Baptiste, who has a great regard for you, and who sent me to show you the way, as I know all the secret places of the hotel, and neither my brother nor he are acquainted with them."
"And I suppose that Jean Baptiste, then, is to be looked on in the light of your lover, fair lady?" demanded I.
"He is a friend of my brother, the Countess's page," replied the girl; and then added, after a moment, "and, perhaps, a lover too. I do not see why I should deny it. He slept here last night with my brother, to be out of the way of some evil that was going on, and they two lying in the gatehouse, first discovered that they were exempts who knocked at the gate so early, and what they wanted."
"Will you bear a message to Jean Baptiste?" said I. "Tell him that I am not ungrateful for his kindness; and bid him tell his sister, that nothing but that which has this day happened would have prevented me from seeing her as I promised."
"His sister!" said the girl. "I did not know that he had a sister--but hark! they are searching the tower."
As she spoke, I could plainly hear the sound of steps treading the other staircase, and passing directly over our heads; and curious was the sensation, to feel myself within arm's length of my pursuers, without the possibility of their overtaking me.
"They have broken open the door," said my companion in a low tone. "We had better make haste; for when they do not find you in the tower, they may set guards in the streets round about."