The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

The sentry was fumbling with his tinderbox. Would he look up and see that fine strand, grey as the sky, stretched over his head?

The world was waking to the dawn. Thrushes piped their first notes in the garden. Puffing at his pipe, the sentry turned and scanned the eastward horizon. Lines of rosy clouds showed themselves, forerunners of the storm. Marion clutched Simone's hands, waiting for the man's eyes to sweep the sky. She was struggling with an overpowering desire to scream aloud. Another minute ticked by. Three o'clock struck from the churches in the town. With a grunt the man lazily took up his carbine. He looked idly at the trees across. It seemed to Marion's distorted vision that he stared straight into their little casement. For another space he lingered, his legs wide, leaning against the wall. Then he straightened himself. He shouldered his carbine, and turned away. There was a stifled cry from Marion as she took the line with trembling fingers, and gently paid it out. For a second it slackened over the trees. Then the hand at the other side drew in again; and more and more rapidly as silk gave way to cord. Before the sentry had time to pass the corner again, Roger had secured the package tied on the rope, and drawn in the trailing end.

There was a dead silence in the little room. Unheeded the sentry paced the south front, unheeded tramped out to the wider stretch of the yard. Simone said something her companion scarcely noted, and the next minute Marion was alone.

The first act was over; the second, containing a still more perilous movement, was about to be played; of the third—the headlong flight to the west—Marion did not think at all.

What was going on in the cell yonder? She fancied she could see Roger's kneeling figure at the grating; he was evidently filing the iron near to the base. The bars were not very close together; when two were gone, Roger should be able to get out. There was a drop of about fifteen feet. With the help of the rope he should be able to let himself noiselessly down.

In reality only a few minutes had passed since the arrow had reached its mark, but to Marion it seemed already an hour. She looked anxiously at the eastern sky, now suffused with stronger light. In another half hour the daylight would be making very plain all the features of town and country alike. A few hoarse notes came to her ears, punctuated by the heavy footfall of the sentry in the yard. ''Tis a cheerful soul!' mused Marion, with a wry smile. A minute later the dark form loomed round the corner.

The first drops of rain were falling. The fitful breeze of the early morning had strengthened into a westerly wind. Instinctively Marion's thoughts began to dwell on the prospect of the ride over the border in the face of such a storm as was brewing.

Something moving in the road caught her eye, and switched back her thoughts to the present. Simone's noiseless figure was creeping along in front of the gaol wall. The blood rushed to Marion's face. She had forgotten that arrow. Her eyes went alternately from the sentry's steady movement to the fluttering figure in the road. Suppose he should open the wicket?

The light form glided noiselessly back, and Marion glued her eyes again to the grating of the cell.

As the sentry passed round the corner, Marion bent forward and listened for the sound of the grinding of the file. But not by straining her ears to the utmost could she hear anything save the steady tramp of the soldier. Surely there had been time to file through those two bars! In her impatience she forgot that the prisoner was bound to restrict his efforts to the time the sentry spent at the back of the building.