"Stay a minute, Jeannette. Let us have a good look at him. How pale he is! But look at his noble countenance—handsome and expressive as a hero's should be! Such countenances have men only who live temperately and think purely. Contrast, Jeannette, the blotched and bleared countenance of Vigneau. There is a tell-tale and an index at once to the beastly life and foul imagination. How my heart revolts at the sight of him! I would prefer the touch of a vampire."
Meanwhile, Wulfhere threaded his way by a path familiar to him, until he reached the foot of the circular stair which led to the turret, ascending which, and watching through a loophole, he heard the command to spare Oswald's life until the morrow.
"Thank Heaven! Whilst there is life there is hope. If a desperate effort to rescue him will succeed, I count upon a few daring spirits to venture it."
But the tramp of heavy feet resounding through the corridors warned him to delay no longer. Turning his face towards a farther ascent, he ran his hand along the wall in the darkness until the feel of a certain stone arrested his attention, applying his strength to which, it slowly revolved, disclosing an aperture into which a man might drop.
Into this aperture Wulfhere disappeared; and the stone revolved to its place again.
CHAPTER XII.
ALICE DE MONTFORT SETS FREE THE SAXON CHIEFTAIN.
"O woman! lovely woman! nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you."
Otway.