As he spoke, he heard the report of a carbine; and desperate with apprehension for his father, he snatched his only remaining pistol from his belt. "Open that door, warden," cried he, "or I will make a passage through your heart!"
The wary Spaniard did not stop to answer, but striking aside the arm that held the pistol, it went off; and the ball lodged in the opposite wall. Louis then felt for his sword. His athletic opponent was on the watch; and seizing him round the body.
"Marquis," cried he, "these outrages can only undo yourself. If the Duke de Ripperda be found, he must be taken alive, at the risk of those who seek him. Kill me, and you are no less a prisoner; for the door is fastened, beyond your strength to burst."
Louis was alone with this powerful man; for Lorenzo, with the same intentions as his master, had rushed out with the soldiers. While he stood, apparently quiescent, in the clutch of his adversary, he still held his hand on his sword. He discredited the pledge for Ripperda's safety, and resolutely replied. "If my father have fallen, there shall be life for life!"
And with the word, he suddenly wrenched himself from the warden's grasp, and as suddenly drawing out his sword, stood with his back against the door.—"I am here, till I know the issue of this search; but I am not, a second time to be disarmed. Repeat to the sentinel without, your command respecting my father's safety; and demand of him, the cause of the firing of that carbine!"
The warden had no weapons, but his bodily strength; and finding that the nerve of his young antagonist, when braced by despair, was equal to his own; and seeing that desperation was in his eyes, and a sword in his hand; he thought it prudent to comply; and he called to the sentinel to dispatch a man round with the demands of the Marquis.
Never, since the hour of his birth, did Louis find himself in so terrible a situation. He was hearkening to the distant voices of them, he believed were his father's murderers, and he found it impossible to get to his rescue! He was, himself, acting the part of a man of violence, to one who was only performing his hard, but cruel duty! As he stood, gloomily lost in the horror of the moment, another carbine was fired, accompanied by shouts from the soldiers. He thought he heard a groan follow the report, and that it issued from below the window.
Without a word, or almost a thought, he threw his sword from him, and springing on the opposite wall, found that he had not climbed the perpendicular cliffs of Lindisfarne in vain. The stones were rough; and giving short but sufficient hold to his hand and foot, he gained the deep recess of the window before he scarcely knew he had left the ground. The act seemed but one spring, to the amazed warden. Louis had no sooner reached the window, than he would have thrown himself from the flinty butments upon the top of the precipice. Happily the voice of Lorenzo, from the rock beneath, arrested him.
To descend on this side, by clambering, was impossible; the outer part of the wall being worn inward in great and abrupt hollows, till that part of the tower where the window was excavated, hung over the rock in a shelving state.
"The Duke cannot be found!" cried Lorenzo.—"For his sake, and for God's do not attempt quitting the dungeon by that window! The soldiers have just shot away this rope-ladder, by which he must have escaped."