Who the kind person might be that had furnished and sent the bold page with these means of escape, Roland had no means of ascertaining; for, being tongueless, poor Sabrino was mute as a fish; and of all his innumerable signs and nods, winks and unearthly chuckles, the master of the ordnance could make nothing.
A plain wooden prie-dieu formed part of the furniture of his apartment. On his knees Roland Vipont sank into it, and on a lock of Jane's hair fixed a long, a passionate, and indescribable gaze of love and sorrow, and then uttered a brief, emphatic prayer.
"Innocent or guilty, I will see her once again, or die in the attempt," said he, placing the ringlet in his bosom, and preparing to descend.
The passage of the window was easily accomplished; and reaching the base of the tower, he found himself upon a narrow ledge of rock; the chill wind rushed up past him, and voices were faintly borne with it from below. There, the cliff on which King David's Tower was built is somewhat impending, and from the broad battlements a plumb-line might, without meeting an obstacle, be dropped to the depth of nearly two hundred and fifty feet, to the pathway on which Sir John Forrester and Lintstock stood on that night. If dropped one yard beyond the rock, it would have fallen into the waters of the lake.
Roland's heart expanded in his breast; for to his active spirit, which had writhed in captivity, there was almost a relief in the new energy of action.
He descended with equal rapidity and boldness, for he was utterly regardless of life; and this very carelessness was perhaps his salvation, by affording him the means of achieving that in which the timid or the wary man would inevitably have failed. The wild wallflower, the strong docken blades, the long grass, the longer and more tenacious ivy which grew in the clefts of the rocks, or overhung their lichen-spotted brows, afforded him the means of descent after he had passed the bottom of the cord.
In the darkness and obscurity of the night, he could not have been seen even from the windows of Wallace's Tower or the Constable's Tower, but now their inmates had all deserted them; for the entire population of the castle were crowding on the battlements of the great peel, the eastern curtain, and the spur, which overlooked the place of execution, the preparations for which were being made on the south side of the Castle-hill.
He had one risk of discovery alone; for, not eighty yards from where Forrester awaited him, the pathway was crossed and defended by the Well-house Tower.
Those of our readers who may have perused our "Memorials" of the ancient fortress, may remember how frequently we had occasion to mention this now ruined ravelin.
Built over a fountain, the waters of which fed the loch, this strong square tower rose within six feet of the enormous perpendicular cliff sustaining David's Tower. A massive wall, having an archway with an iron gate and loopholes for arrows and musketry, secured the narrow path which led to St. Cuthbert's Church on one hand, and ascended the Castle-hill on the other, passing between the tower and the rock. The guard here had the treble duty of protecting the well, the private roadway, and the city wall of A.D. 1450, which enclosed the Castle-hill at its northern base. The tower was entered from the inside of this flanking wall by two doors, which, by a stair partly hewn in the rocks, led to the first and second floors. The upper was at that time always occupied by a party of arquebusiers, and the light of their guard-fire streamed redly through two narrow grated windows upon the still dark bosom of the loch, which washed the north wall, and rolled away in obscurity towards the east end of the city.