"Well! well!" he exclaimed, "we have no time to talk about such matters now; but eat you shall, or I will have you crammed, as they stuff fat-livered geese! Come, Niger, we must lose no minute. If they attack again, and miss me from the battlements, they will be suspecting something, and will perhaps come prying to the rear.—Have you seen any soldiers, girl, on this side? I trow you have been gazing from the window all day long in the hope of escaping, but I suppose you will not tell me truly."
"If I tell you not truly, I shall hold my peace. But I will tell you, that I have seen no human being, no living thing, indeed; unless it be a thrush, and three wood pigeons, fluttering in the treetops yonder."
"That is a lie, I dare be sworn!" cried Niger. "If it had been the truth she would not have breathed a word of it to us. Beside which, it is too cool altogether!"
"By Mulciber my patron! if I believed so, it should go[pg 178] hardly with her; but it matters not. Come, we must lose no time."
And passing into the central room of the three, they made one end of the rope fast about the waist of Niger, and the other to an upright mullion in the embrasure, which, although broken half way up, afforded ample purchase whereby to lower him into the chasm.
This done, the man clambered out of the window very coolly, going backward, as if he were about to descend a ladder; but, when his face was on the point of disappearing below the sill, as he hung by his hands alone, having no foothold whatever, he said quietly, "If I shout, Caius Crispus, haul me up instantly. I shall not do so, if there be any path below. But if I whistle, be sure that all is right. Lower away. Farewell."
"Hold on! hold on, man!" replied Crispus quickly, "turn yourself round so as to bring your back to the crag's face, else shall the angles of the rock maim, and the dust blind you. That's it; most bravely done! you are a right good cragsman."
"I was born among the crags, at all events," answered the other, "and I think now that I am going to die among them. But what of that? One must die some day! Fewer words! lower away, I say, I am tired of hanging here between Heaven and Tartarus!"
No words were spoken farther, by any of the party; but the smith with the aid of Rufus paid out the line rapidly although steadily, hand under hand, until the whole length was run out with the exception of some three or four feet.
Just at this moment, when Crispus was beginning to despair of success, and was half afraid that he had miscalculated the length of the rope, the strain on it was slackened for a moment, and then ceased altogether.