Still they toiled upward, more slowly and cautiously now, for the danger increased with every turn. At last they halted, side by side, on the little platform under the sliding window. To Nicholas’s surprise Franz stood there, surveying it all without flinching. The younger boy turned to his burly companion: “Somehow, we’ve never been very good friends. I don’t think the fault was all on my side, because you wouldn’t let me be your friend. And we have had a good many quarrels. Won’t you shake hands with me now and wish me good luck? If—if”—and there was just the suspicion of a tremor in the winning voice—“I should never see you again, I should like to feel that we were friends at the last. You’re very good to come up here with me.”
To his dying day Nicholas never forgot the slight, almost girlish, figure, standing there, with the wistful little smile, and the pleading tenderness shining in the blue eyes. He touched the slender outstretched hand with his own, but dropped it suddenly, as if he had received an electric shock. He tried to say “Good luck,” but his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth.
“Look you, Franz,” he murmured hoarsely, “when you are safe outside I’ll hand out the flag. I’ll wait till you reach the opposite side of the spire and call out, ‘All’s well,’ and then I’ll go down and leave you to make your way back. And glad I shall be to leave this miserable trap in mid air.”
Franz’s face was deathly pale, but his eyes shone like two stars. He climbed up nimbly through the opening, let himself carefully down to the stone ledge outside, and reached up for the flag. A few moments passed, which seemed like ages to the waiting Nicholas. Then a cheery “All’s well” rang out, without a quiver in the steady voice. The older boy’s face grew black with rage. “What nerve the pale, sickly little thing has!” he muttered between his set teeth. “I believe he’ll do it after all! And so this baby gets not only the prizes at the goldsmith’s, but the money and the glory of this thing, to say nothing of his taking my place in the cathedral.”
He raised his hand to the window, and stood in front of it for a moment. Then he began the descent as if some demon were after him. The frail ladders vibrated and swayed with the dangerous strain, but down he went, with reckless haste, until he reached the second platform, when he raised his hands with an agonized gesture to his ears as if he was trying to shut out the voice of conscience, that kept calling to him, “Back! back! before it is too late! Stain not thy young soul with such a crime!”
Still he hurried down with flying step to the landing near the great bell, where he paused, and stood leaning breathless against one of the cross-beams of the tower. Into the fierce, turbulent passions of the troubled face stole a softened expression, lighting up the swarthy lineaments like a gleam of sunshine. “I will go back and undo the horrid deed,” he cried, as if in answer to the good angel pleading within his breast. “I am coming, Franz! God forgive me!”