“I will tell you, Claud. Marie’s room is in the other wing, just above the verandah; her window is within a yard of the fig-tree, and overlooks the garden. Let us go there. I will ascend the tree.”
“Well, and what then?” I asked.
“Why, I will throw some pebbles at the panes. If she is well, it will arouse her; she will show herself, and I shall be satisfied.”
“I don’t half like the plan,” said I; “we may frighten her into another fainting-fit.”
“Well, look here, Claud. All I want to know is, whether you will go with me.”
“Suppose I say no.”
“Then I will go by myself, that’s all.”
“Very well, then, we will go together.”
The night was of pitchy darkness; so far, so good. We could creep by the very walls without being observed, should any inmate still be about. Having reached the fig-tree, Martin began to make its ascent; but the trunk was so smooth, and the lowest branch so high, that it was beyond his reach. To remedy that difficulty, however, I stood against the tree, while he clambered on to my shoulders, and by that means just managed to grasp the first branch. As soon as I felt myself relieved from his weight, I began to tremble (I am a bit of a coward, or, at least, compared with Martin, a little nervous), in fear that a false step, or the rustling of the leaves, might arouse some restless sleeper; and he did make a false step, and, by so doing, such a noise, that I felt certain we should be discovered; but he persevered, and when he had reached the branch nearly level with our cousin’s window, as had previously been arranged between us, he signalized the same by dropping a few pebbles upon my head. Then, with a beating heart, I listened. Pat, pat, pat, against the panes went three pebbles, but no answer. Others were then thrown, but still no answer. A third time he pebbled the panes, and successfully, for I could distinctly hear the French windows open. “Marie is aroused at last,” I muttered; but no! if so, Martin would have spoken; but for a few minutes there was a dead silence; then (oh, didn’t I feel as if I should like to have shrunk down within my own shoes), I heard our aunt’s voice calling to a slave to bring lights. How provoking! my brother, after all, had mistaken our aunt’s room for Marie’s. What would be the consequences? surely they would detect him when the lights came? or if not, believing thieves were about the premises, would arouse the household; then, not daring to call to him, I despaired. Fortunately, however, not losing his presence of mind, the next minute he had slidden quietly down the smooth trunk.
“Bother!” he whispered in my ear. “What a muff I must have been to have made such a mistake! But come, Claud, let us hide among the bushes, and perhaps they will think we were old Boreas.”