CHAPTER VII
THEY had only one hope of getting free. By some means they must cross the open courtyard, and creep round to the Castle gate before the coming dawn had time to reveal them.
On hands and knees they made for the open. With no longer the shadow of the Castle walls to conceal them, their peril was greatly increased. More than once they stopped and lay full length on the ground, so near they were to discovery. It seemed as if they would never be able to get to the point they had fixed upon, which was the precarious shelter of a few stunted shrubs growing near to the Castle gate.
It was a long while before they could reach that security. Not long perhaps in point of fact but an age in experience. Each time they lay down on the hard cobblestones to avoid some new danger they expected the dread proclamation to ring in their ears. It seemed little short of a miracle, such was their exaggeration of events, that the escape was not known already.
At last they were come to the place they sought, hard by the gate. And here it was that the Providence which thus far had used them so well seemed now to desert them. To their horror they realized that the east was already light. The only hope of getting clear had been to slip unseen through the gate at a moment it might chance to be open for the admission of others. But from the first they had known that daylight would make the risk too great to admit of any such expedient.
They must find some other way. Yet Anne well knew there was no other way. The Castle was surrounded by walls it was impossible to scale, except on the south side. Here the parapet was low, and for a sufficient reason. Beyond the south wall the Castle rock ended abruptly. A terrible chasm, hundreds of feet in depth, lurked beneath.
They had soon decided that the gate could not avail them now. Thus they crept away to the left in the direction of the south wall, taking cover as they went beneath a row of laurel-bushes. But no sooner had they reached the wall than they saw, even in the gray twilight, that it was certain death to climb it and hazard a descent of the sheer precipice on the farther side. What could they do? Every moment it was growing lighter.
By now Gervase had shaken off his lethargy. One who has lain weeks in a prison and has composed himself for death can hardly be expected to take occasion by the hand. But the fine and keen air of the morning and the almost miraculous chance of life that had been given him had done much to restore his numbed faculties. A resolve had already been born in his heart to sell his life very dearly. In the last resort he was determined to attempt the almost impassable face of the cliff.
But there was his brave companion. She seemed to read his mind. And reading it she summoned the courage of despair. “If there is no other way we will crawl down the rock,” she said.
“It would be death, mistress.”