"Constables! constables!" shouted Mr. Arden.
"You call in vain, hard, stone-hearted man," cried Pharold, shaking his clenched hand at him, "you call in vain;" and bounding to the side of the hall on which the tall windows had been thrown open, he set one foot upon the secretary's table, and with a single spring reached the high window sill, catching with his hand the small stone column on which the casements hung. There he paused for one moment; and turning his head, exclaimed, "William de Vaux, noble William de Vaux, farewell,--for ever, and ever, and ever, farewell."
He let go his hold: he sprang forward, and was lost to the sight. The next moment the dull heavy splash of a large body falling into the water rose up and was carried by the wind through the open windows into the justice-room.
"Run round, run round," cried Mr. Arden to the constables, who were now hurrying in; "he has escaped through the window; run round there by the outside."
One or two instantly followed these directions; but another sprang up to the window to mark the course of the fugitive, and point it out to the pursuers.
"He must have jumped into the stream, gentlemen," said the man, turning to speak to the magistrates, as soon as he had reached the spot where Pharold had stood the moment before. "He must have jumped into the stream, for there is not footing for a mouse."
"He did, he did: we heard him," answered Mr. Arden. "Look out, and see where he comes to land. My lord, why do you cover your face with your hand? you seem more sorry for the prisoner's escape than I anticipated."
"It is because I know him better than you do, sir," answered the peer; "and I fear that you have driven him further than you imagine."
"I can see nothing on the river, gentlemen," cried the constable, "but the bubbles and the eddies where he must have gone down. There's a shoulder, there's a shoulder, I do believe; and his long black hair as I live:--it is gone again; he is down--I see no more of it."
Lord Dewry started up and rushed out; but it was in vain that every effort was made to find the gipsy living or dead. The constables who had run round the justice-room declared that they had never seen anything rise. The other, who had watched from the window, soon became very doubtful in regard to the reality of the objects he had seen floating down the stream. An old labourer, who had been working at a distance, stated that he had remarked something fall from the window of the justice-room into the water, but had seen nothing come to land. The peer, with as many people as he could collect, followed the course of the river for some way; and the constables, though with different views, pursued the same course. In the meanwhile, the magistrates continued in deliberation, as it is called; although it must be acknowledged that their conversation referred much more particularly to, and rested much more pertinaciously upon, the strange return of Lord Dewry, the various circumstances which could have given occasion to his absence, and the various events to which his re-appearance would give rise, than even to the disappearance of the prisoner, and the after-measures to be adopted.