"Oh, Basil!" I exclaimed, "could you keep on looking?"
"Yea," he answered; "as if mine eyes should start out of my head. He came down slowly, helping himself, I ween, with his feet against the wall; but when he got to about twenty or thirty feet, I guess it to have been, from the roof of the shed, he stopped of a sudden, and hung motionless. 'He is out of breath,' I said to Tom. 'Or the rope proves too short,' quoth he. We watched him for a moment. He swung to and fro, then rested again, his feet against the wall. 'Beshrew me, but I will climb on to that roof myself, and get nigh to him,' I whispered to Tom, and was springing out of the boat, when we heard a noise more loud than can be thought of. 'I'll warrant you he hath fallen on the planks,' quoth Tom. 'Marry, but we will pick him up then,' quoth I; and found myself soon on the edge of the roof, which was broken in at one place, and, looking down, I thought I saw him lying on the ground. I cried as loud as I durst, 'Mr. Watson, be you there? Hist! Are you hurt? Speak if you can.' Methinks he was stunned by the fall, for he did not answer; so there remained nothing left to do but to leap myself through the opening into the shed, where I found him with his eyes shut, and moaning. But when I spake to him he came to himself, 'and tried to rise, but could not stand, one of his legs being much hurt. 'Climb on to my back, reverend sir,' I said 'and with God's help we shall get out.' Howsoever, the way out did not appear manifest, and mostly with another beside one's self to carry. But glancing round the inside of the shed, I perceived a door, the fastening of which, when I shook it, roughly enough I promise you, gave way; and the boat lay, God be praised, close to it outside. I gave one look up to the prison, and saw lights flashing in some of the windows. 'They be astir,' I said to Tom. 'Hist! lend a hand, man, and take the reverend gentleman from off my back and into [{458}] the boat.' Mr. Watson uttered a groan. He most have suffered cruel pain; for, as we since found, his leg and also his arm were broken, and he looked more dead than alive.
"We began to row as fast as we could; but now he, coming to himself, feels in his coat, and cries out:
"'Oh, kind sirs—the cord, the cord! Stop, I pray you; stop, turn back.'
"'Not for the world,' I cried, 'reverend sir.'
"Then he, in a lamentable voice:
"'Oh, if you turn not back and bring away the cord, the poor gentlewoman which did give it unto me must needs fall into sore trouble. Oh, for God's sake, turn back!'
"I gave a hasty glance at the prison, where increasing stir of lights was visible, and resolved that to return should be certain ruin to ourselves and to him for whom Mistress Ward had risked her life, and little or no hope in it for her, as it was not possible there should be time to get the cord and then escape, which with best speed now could with difficulty be effected. So I turned a deaf ear to Mr. Watson's pleadings, with an assured conscience she should have wished no otherwise herself; and by God's mercy we made such way before they could put out a boat, landing unseen beyond the next bridge, that we could secretly convey him to the house of a Catholic not far from the river on the other side, where he doth lie concealed. I promise you, sweetheart, we did row hard. Albeit I strove very much last year when I won the boat-match at Richmond, by my troth it was but child's play to last night's racing. Poor Mr. Watson fainted before we landed, and neither of us dared venture to stop from pulling for to assist him. But, God be praised, he is now in a good bed; and I fetched for him at daybreak a leech I know in the Borough, who hath set his broken limbs; and to-night if the weather be not foul, when it gets dark, we will convey him in a boat to a vessel at the river's mouth, which I have retained for to take us to Calais. But I would Mistress Ward was on board of it also."
"Oh, Basil," I exclaimed, "if we can discover where she doth lodge, it would not then be impossible. If we had forecasted this yesterday, she would be saved. Yet she had perhaps refused to tell us."
"Most like she would," he answered; "but if you do hit by any means upon her abode to-day, forthwith despatch a trusty messenger unto me at Mr. Hodgson's, and I promise you, sweetheart, she shall, will she nill she, if I have to use force for it, be carried away to France, and stowed with a good madame I know at Calais."