At that instant I caught sight of Dulcima Bishop, her cloak all wet with rain, passing quickly along the corridor towards Mount's cell; and I called her and gave her my flask, glad to have it safe at least from the search which the death-watch was certain to make.
The poor child turned pale under the scarlet hood of her witch-cloak when I bade her promise to serve us with a kinder and more honourable death than the death planned for us on the morrow.
"I promise, sir," she said, faintly, raising her frightened white face, framed by the wet cloak and damp strands of hair. She added timidly: "I have a knife for—for Jack—and a file."
"It is too late for such things," I answered, quietly. "If it is certain that you cannot get the keys from your father, there is no hope for us."
Her face, which in the past month had become terribly pinched and thin, quivered; her hands tightened on the edge of the grating. "If—if I could get the keys—" she began.
"Unless you do so there is no hope, child."
There was a silence; then she cried, in a choking voice: "I can get them! Will that free Jack? I will get the keys; truly, I will! Oh, do you think he can go free if I open the cell?"
"He has a knife," I said, grimly; "I have my two hands. Open the cells and we will show you."
She covered her eyes with her hands. Jack called to her from his grating; she started violently, turned and went to him.
They stood whispering a long time together. I paced my cell, with brain a-whirl and hope battering at my heart for the admittance I craved to give. If she could only open that door!—that rusted, accursed mass of iron, the very sight of which was slowly crushing out the last spark of manhood in me!