One Maid's Mischief

by George Manville Fenn

For answer the girl climbed over her, made Helen move slightly, and then, seating herself with the legs through the hole, she took off the sarong worn veil-fashion over her shoulders, and twisting it tightly, tied it to the one Helen wore, making of the two a strong silken rope, one end of which she secured to the trembling prisoner’s left wrist.

“Now,” she whispered, “I will hold you by this. Let yourself slide softly till you touch the bars with your feet, and then climb down. Afterwards hang from the sarongs, and I will lower you as far as I can.”

Helen drew a long, deep breath, trembling the while, for the height and position in which they were seemed to her to be awful!

But she did not shrink now; she felt committed to the desperate enterprise; and holding on by the tough palm-leaves, she lowered herself down the steep roof, and then clung to the woodwork with all her strength, as her feet were suspended now over the darkness, and she sought foothold for them with desperate haste.

But for the steady strain upon her wrist she would have fallen; but this encouraged her to renewed effort, and after a few trials, and just as she began to feel that her task was hopeless, her right foot touched and rested upon one of the bars, and taking a fresh hold, she stepped down, slipped, was held by the tight tension of the silken rope, saved herself, and the next minute stood panting, with hands and feet sustained by the stout bamboo trellis of the window.

Here she paused for a few moments, when once more it was Murad who startled her into action, and she lowered herself down till she was hanging by the sill of the window, seeking for some support for her feet, her companion jerking the sarong sharply to urge her on.

But Helen had exhausted herself by her efforts, and could do no more. She tried once feebly, but there was no result; and to make matters worse, the Malay girl was now straining the sarong, as if afraid that she would fall.

There was a faint cry, a slip, the sarong was held tightly, and Helen fell with a jerk that seemed to drag her left arm from the socket. She swung for a moment, and the silken rope was lowered so rapidly that she seemed to be falling. Then she did fall with a crash amongst the bushes, what seemed to her to be an immense distance, though it was only some half-dozen feet, and she lay perfectly still, feeling that she was terribly hurt.

She was half stunned by the fall and the excitement; but her companion climbed down lightly, and bent over her in the darkness.

“Quick!” she whispered. “Someone must have heard you fall? Are you hurt?”