For all that the shrewd air played about the condemned man’s temples, for all that the soft grass was under him, for all that a young moon and a sky of faint stars was over his head, he could hardly believe he was alive, or if alive could hardly realize he was broad awake.
Less than a hundred yards away, round an angle of the great building, the hammers were still mutilating the peace of the night. As Gervase and Anne stood to listen, not knowing what to do next and uncertain of the way to go, since peril hemmed them in on every side, they were greatly startled by a scrunch of feet on the gravel quite close to them. There was a sudden drone of voices which told them that two men were quickly approaching the spot on which they stood. Indeed they had barely time to put out the light of the lantern and to crouch close under the shadow of the huge wall of the prison before the men passed them.
They came so near that they almost touched Anne and Gervase as they knelt. They heard the men open the door through which they had just come, and as it swung back, so close were Anne and Gervase to it that it concealed them behind it.
The sudden flash of the light that one of the men carried was very terrifying.
“Wake up, Nick.” The rough voice the other side of the door was so loud in the ears of the fugitives that they held their breaths. “Wake up, Nick.” They heard the man grunt as he gave a vigorous shake to the turnkey, who was still snoring tremendously. “What a devil you are for sleeping and drinking! Master Norris the headsman is here and would have a few words with the condemned.”
A perfect tornado of shakes accompanied the words, which yielded presently to a series of kicks. Evidently the business of arousing the turnkey was to prove no light one.
“Wake, you drunken fool. Here is Master Norris the headsman, don’t you hear? Are you going to keep us here all day?”
Hardly daring to draw breath, Anne and Gervase continued to kneel close behind the open door. Their terror and their peril suddenly made Anne desperate. Not daring to speak, she plucked her companion’s sleeve; and then putting all to the touch and keeping close under the shadow of the wall, she started to creep away on hands and knees from this position of imminent danger. Even by the time they had made a distance of fifty yards in this painful fashion, and had set a buttress of the Castle between them and the open door, they could still hear the indignant voice of him who had laid upon himself the task of rousing the sleeping jailer.
They could breathe a little now. But their position was still one of very great peril. The whole place seemed to be astir. Men and lights were moving in all directions. Voices of soldiers, workmen and servants of the Castle were all about them. As yet there was not a single fleck of the dawn to be seen, but already the birds had begun their early notes. Daybreak must be very near.
Not for an instant must they stay in the place they were now in. Even as they knelt close by the wall they expected to hear the startled outcry that would announce the escape of the condemned man.