It was quite dark in the cell, for only a little light could come in at a barred window, whose sill she could just reach by standing on tiptoe. Poor Laurine wept bitterly when she thought that she was going to be drowned next morning, and she cried all the more when she remembered how unkind she had been to Swayn, and how much he loved her. She wished she had not been so cruel. How often she had thrown her gold slippers at him and told him he had not made them shine enough, when he had spent hours rubbing and polishing them! How many times she had seen him sad and heavy with the weight of her scornful words! She was afraid that, even if he got into the town, the jasmine flowers would be so much trampled that he would not guess what they were. She took off her little gold shoes and put them up on the window-sill, just inside the bars. “If he passes he will see them,” she said. The man outside was so near the wall that the depth of the sill hid them from his sight.
Swayn was only waiting till it was dark to get into the town. The river ran all round it, but he could swim well, and he had noticed a place where the wall was low and a beam stuck out which he thought he could reach with a leap. When the moon was up he left the Goblin in a thicket and plunged into the river, and, once across, he ran along under the walls till he came to the big beam. After one or two attempts he managed to spring up and clasp it with his hands, and then he swung himself up without much difficulty, and was soon standing on it, looking down into the moonlit streets of the city.
Nobody was about. The ground was much higher on the inside, so he let himself down easily, but, as he had no notion where they had taken Laurine, he did not know which way to go. He met few people in the deserted streets, and as the whole of the crowd which had captured her was sitting planning how it should drown her on the morrow, no one had any idea who he was.
He was almost in despair, when he noticed a jasmine flower lying at his feet; then he saw that there was another farther on, and yet another after that, and he knew that she had dropped them that he might trace her. He followed the track through several streets, and as he went he kept singing, that she might hear his voice if she were anywhere near.
“Laurine, Laurine, the jasmine white
Shines like a star in the darkest night,”
he sang. He dared not call, for fear of disturbing the sleeping town.
At last he came to where flowers and leaves stopped, near an open space by the town wall. Close to it was a little stone cell with a barred window and a door, in front of which lay a sleeping man, with a key tied to his belt. It was easy to see that no one could get in without awakening him.
Swayn looked up to the window above the sleeper’s head, and saw the two little shoes placed together on the sill. He crept nearer, and sang again:
“Laurine, Laurine, the jasmine white