CHAPTER XXI.
THE PERFIDY OF DESMOND.
“Ruari!” said Eva O’Malley; “here!”
It was that darkest time of night that preludes the day, and I could see no one with any degree of clearness, but, guided by that beloved voice, I went forward, nothing doubting.
Straining my eyes into the blank, I made out figures, moving towards the gate; Eva came to my side, and we followed close upon them. Mystified as I was at what had just occurred, it gave me a delicious thrill of happiness to be near Eva, and to feel myself a free man again.
“Eva!” I said.
“Do not speak—do not speak,” said she, “we are not yet out of danger.”
In silence then we walked through the court until we had come to the guard-house by the gate, and there we halted. One of those with us went into the room, and I could hear, though indistinctly, the sounds of him and others talking together.
Some long minutes passed, and the suspense was becoming unendurable, when two men with lanterns appeared. Without looking at us they proceeded to lower the drawbridge, the rattling of whose chains was to me then the finest music in the world, and to open the gate.