“Well, sir, you see, it aren’t like muskets, or swords, or ammunition,” said the sergeant. “We don’t want pioneering tools every day.”
“But they ought to be ready for use at a moment’s notice.”
“So they are,” grumbled the sergeant to himself; “but you’ve got to get to ’em first.”
And now it appeared to Lady Gowan that an hour passed slowly away, without news of what was passing upstairs, and her agony seemed to be more than she could bear. Every sense had been on the strain, as she stood in trembling expectancy of hearing a shot fired—a shot that she knew would be at the life of her boy’s father; but the sluggish minutes crawled on, and still all was silent above, while outside she was constantly hearing little things which showed how thoroughly the soldiery were on the alert.
She had not heard the officer speak for some time, and she divined that he must have gone round to the back of the house, where it faced the open Park; but he would, she was sure, return soon, to give directions to the men who arrived with the tools for breaking in the door; and when this was done, if Sir Robert had not found a way to escape, there would be bloodshed. Her husband would never surrender while he could grasp a sword, and Frank would be certain to draw in his father’s defence, and then—
Then Lady Gowan felt, as it were, an icy stab, which passed with a shock right through her; for the thought suggested itself how easy it would be for the soldiers to get a short ladder into the garden front of the house, rear it against the balcony outside the drawing-room window, and force their way in there. No bars would trouble them, and the shutters would give but little resistance. Why had she not thought of that before?
And as she thoroughly grasped this weakness of their little fort in the rear she turned cold with horror, for there was a faint sound on the staircase behind her, and as at the same moment she heard the loud steps of approaching men on the pavement outside a hand made a quick clutch from the darkness behind at her arm.