"I shall be," said Andrew, "a little lower than the roof when I am at its full length below, therefore 'tis very well. For, when I am about to plunge across, it will require more length to gain that roof. Now, I will make a trial. And, one last word. Remember, I shall come back ere long. I feel it--know it. As man to man, I charge you not to desert me; not to quit this spot until all human hope of my return has vanished from your mind. On you my life, and the life of her I go to rescue, depends."
"There is my hand," Laurent said, finding that of the other in the darkness. "Alive I will not quit the place. Even though you come not back for forty-eight hours I shall be here."
"Enough! If I come not back in that time I shall be dead. Then--do as you will."
He looped the end of the coil about his body under his armpits, and, taking as well one turn of the rope beneath his shoulder, so that it should by no possibility be able to slip up over his head, he also wound it round his left arm. That done, he knew that nothing but the fraying of the strands upon the coping of the wall, or a sudden hack at it from a knife, could plunge him on to the stones below. It would never leave his body now until he removed it, or until, if dead, some other performed that office.
"Let it slip gradually round the trunk of the tree," he said, "till it is all payed out. About a foot from the ground; thereby it will escape the rough stones of the edge. Farewell! Remember!"
And now he knelt down upon the extreme lip of the coping-stone, found that one place in particular was very smooth, and decided that it was over this that the rope must run. Thereby, the friction would be scarcely anything.
"Lower me down," he whispered, as his legs hung dangling in the unfathomable space, and the toes of his boots scraped against the surface of the wall. "Lower me now."
And as he spoke he perceived himself slowly gliding down the face of the dank, wet wall, and felt the ferns and mosses that grew upon it brushing against his jacket.