The wind was rising, and the sea was running high with an angry sound in it, and white caps showing through the darkness.
“Oh, Tom, I’m afraid. Let’s walk,” Elithe said, drawing back from a great wave which came rolling into the boat house.
“There’s danger on the road and none on the sea. I’ve been out in much rougher weather than this,” Tom said, lifting Elithe into the boat.
He was very calm and fearless, and his calmness helped to quiet Elithe as they pushed out upon the dark water, keeping as near the shore as possible, until they landed at a point nearly opposite the jail. A few drops of rain were beginning to fall as they groped their way across the sands and the strip of meadow, or marsh land, between it and the highway. Everything about the building was still as death. The jailer was unquestionably asleep, and possibly Paul.
“But we’ll soon have him awake and with us,” Tom said, encouragingly, to Elithe. “Here’s the stone I’ve sat on many a night and planned this raid. You sit here now and keep these matches under your sacque away from the rain till I tell you to give me one. Maybe I shall want you to help a little with the bars.”
Elithe felt very much like a burglar as she obeyed Tom and sat down upon the stone, just as a flash of lightning lit up the sky showing the wide expanse of angry waters and the foaming waves rolling almost up to where she was sitting. Tom was at the window, she knew, for she could hear him as he tugged at the iron bars which offered more resistance than he had expected.
“Miss Elithe, can you help? Are you strong?” he whispered.
“As a giant,” she answered, losing all her fear, as, standing on the stone Tom rolled under the windows, she put all her strength into the task of liberating Paul.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
FREE.
After Miss Hansford and Elithe left the court room that afternoon there was but little to do. One or two unimportant witnesses were sworn and one or two recalled, when the prosecution was closed and many of the strangers hurried to the boats and cars which were to take them home. They had heard and seen what they came to see and hear,—Miss Hansford and Elithe. They had laughed at Miss Hansford, and said it was as good as a play and they had pitied Elithe, compelled to say what she did not want to say, and which proved so much against Paul that there seemed no hope for him. The trial would end on the morrow without doubt, and many were the conjectures as to what the verdict would be. Paul felt all this as he was driven back to jail after Tom had taken Miss Hansford and Elithe home. He had asked for them and smiled when he spoke of Miss Hansford’s manner in court. Of Elithe’s testimony he said nothing, but she was constantly in his mind as she looked at first when telling what she saw and heard, and as she looked at the last under the cross-examination, denying with energy the story of her engagement to Jack. That gave him some comfort, or would have done so if there had been comfort to be gained from any source.