“How could I do otherwise than trust him, when he had promised to save us?” she asked, and Cyril reflected that it was not the first time he had seen a woman arrive at a right conclusion upon insufficient premisses. But he had no leisure to make further observations on the peculiarities of feminine logic, for it seemed to him that there was another sound mingling with the roar of the waterfall.
“Surely I hear shouting?” he said to the old man, who dropped his pieces of rope immediately, and drew Cyril towards the front of the building, where a gap between two planks afforded a narrow spy-hole. Looking through this, they saw that the clearing was filled with people, who were pouring into it both by the cart-track and the path through the wood, shouting with eagerness as they realised the character of the place. Among them Cyril recognised the big butcher of Karajevo, and also, to his infinite amusement, the churlish host of the preceding night.
“All lie down on the floor, and do not utter a sound,” said the old man, extinguishing the lantern as he and Cyril returned to the rest. “If they are satisfied with searching the ground-floor, we can stay here; but if they guess that we are on this floor, we must escape by the falls.”
“Is there any other ladder?” asked Cyril.
“No; but if they wished to climb up, they could easily devise some means of doing so. Hush!”
Lying flat on the floor, too far from the edge of the hole for their faces to be seen from below, they saw the darkness above them illuminated by wavering lights, while the sound of voices, raised in order to be heard through the noise of the torrent, mounted to their ears. The mob had manufactured torches from some of the dry wood lying about, and were crowding into the lower rooms, peering into the wrecked machinery and probing the rubbish-heaps with their knives. It took some time to satisfy them that the fugitives were not concealed on the ground-floor; but at last they halted below the hole which led to the loft, and gazed up into the blackness.
“There ought to be a ladder,” shouted one. “Where is it?”
“They must be up there,” returned another. “Father Giorgei always leaves the ladder down here, and it isn’t anywhere about.”
“Never mind,” said the butcher. “We can easily get up without it. A young tree with the branches on will serve as a ladder.”
“But the man is sure to be armed,” said another; “and he could shoot you out of the darkness long before you saw him.”