Denny was sleepy, but obedient. I saw him start for the hall, and went on till I reached the compound behind the house. Here I stood, deep in the shadow of the wall. The steps were now over my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof, three yards to the right, I saw the flutter of a white kilt.
"There are more ways out of this house than I know," I thought to myself.
I heard next a noise as though of something being pushed cautiously along the flat roof. Then there protruded from between two of the battlements the end of a ladder! I crouched closer under the wall. The light flight of steps was let down; it reached the ground; the kilted figure stepped on it and began to descend. Here was the Lady Euphrosyne again! Her eagerness to go to her own room was fully explained; there was a way from it across the house and out on to the roof of the kitchen; the ladder showed that the way was kept in use. I stood still. She reached the ground, and as her foot touched it she gave the softest possible little laugh of gleeful triumph. A pretty little laugh it was. Then she stepped briskly across the compound, till she reached the rocks on the other side. I crept forward after her, for I was afraid of losing sight of her in the darkness, and yet did not desire to arrest her progress till I saw where she was going. On she went, skirting the perpendicular drop of rock, I was behind her now. At last she came to the angle formed by the rock running north and that which, turning to the east, enclosed the compound.
"How's she going to get up?" I asked myself.
But up she began to go—her right foot on the north rock, her left foot on the east. She ascended with such confidence that it was evident that steps were ready for her feet. She gained the top. I began to mount in the same fashion, finding steps cut in the face of the cliff. I reached the top, and I saw her standing still, ten yards ahead of me. She went on. I followed. She stopped, looked, saw me, screamed. I rushed on her. Her arms dealt a blow at me—I caught her hand, and in her hand there was a little dagger. Seizing her other hand, I held her fast.
"Where are you going?" I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was purely a national trait.
Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle.
"I was trying to escape," she said. "Did you hear me?"
"Yes, I heard you. Where were you going?"
"Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?"