Even as the thought of doing so ran through his mind, there sprang new born into that mind another idea--the recollection that all was not yet lost.
"What is it?" she whispered, knowing intuitively by his changed countenance that some fresh plan had suddenly dawned on him. "What? Tell me. I will be brave."
"Listen," he said, catching her by the arm in his excitement; bending so low to murmur in her ear that his long moustache brushed her neck. "There is one last hope. But--to avail ourselves of it you must be bold. Very bold. You promise that you will?"
"Yes. Yes. I am brave now. What shall I do?"
"Come," he replied. "Come. Follow me," and he unlocked the door in which he had turned the key on re-entering the room.
"Hold up your dress so that it makes no noise if you can do without them, put off your shoes. I will carry you when we near the sleeping quarters. Come."
She obeyed him, lifting up the end of her long robe with one hand, then--because she was now, in truth, brave and nerved to face all--she took off her shoes and carried them in her other hand. And, stepping gently, she followed him out without question into the darkness of the corridor.
Looking below, he could see by the flickering light of the still burning logs that the man called Brach was fast asleep; indeed, could very well hear that such was the case by the noise he made. But, beyond the faint light which those logs emitted as they now smouldered to an end, the whole house was enveloped in black gloom. Surely, he thought, they should be able to steal to the great door, to turn the key and emerge into the night without anyone being aroused. And, if they were aroused--why! he had his sword and his pistols.
Feeling their way by the balustrades, her hand following his, they crept down stair by stair until they had reached the floor below, and could look over the wooden parapet that ran all around the square hall here, seeing plainly the features of the slumbering man, on which, occasionally, the light cast by little flecks of flame from the logs would glance. Could see that he was plunged in a profound sleep--could hear also the noise of the others snoring somewhere near.
He tapped now the hand that followed his down the stair-rail; once he looked back and his lips muttered, "We shall succeed"; then they went on. Stood at last in the stone-flagged hall with, between them and Brach, a huge pillar that served as one of the supports to the floor they had just left.