“Stay,” said Wat. “I shan’t leave you, skipper, come what may. I’ve done. Not another word about it will you hear from me.”
Wat shouldered the ladder, and together the two men walked towards the water-run, and along it by the stones to the little bridge, which they softly crossed, and entered the garden.
They paused to listen, but all was very still and dark. A more suitable night could not have been chosen for the adventure, and together they made for Mace’s window, where a dim light was burning.
The end of the ladder rustled slightly as it was borne amongst the trees, and they again stopped to listen; but all was still, and so intense was the darkness now before moonrise—the moon that was to light the boat down the river to where the ship lay waiting—that they could see neither to the right nor the left, even the thick bushes under the window were in the gloom.
Would she fail him at this important time? Gil’s heart asked; but he crushed down the thought. No: she would come, he was sure of it, for she had promised him, and he felt no fear of her wanting in spirit for the enterprise.
“No,” he muttered; “she would go through fire and water to escape his touch alone, and she would dare more to be beside me.”
There was a thrill of joy at these thoughts, and he gazed anxiously at the window, waiting to see it opened, that he might raise the ladder and help her away.
It must be the hour, he thought, but the next minute he set it down to impatience.
“She will be to her time,” he said.
As if warned by an instinct of coming danger, Gil Carr drew his sword, and, resting the point upon the toe of his boot, stood leaning his hands upon the hilt, while Wat placed the foot of the ladder on a flowerbed, and held the two sides, with his rusty-beard upon one of the spokes, thinking of how he wished they were going to carry off Janet, and whether she would have been willing to come.