CHAPTER VI.
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.
When I heard Mackenzie’s name pronounced by those fair lips and realized that the scoundrel had dared to force his way to Miss Hatherton’s bedchamber, I was put in such a rage as I had never known before. I did not wait for further information, but, brushing past the girl, I leaped through the open window. There was a narrow balcony beyond it—as I knew—which ran along the side of the house, and looked down on a paved courtyard overshadowed by an adjoining building.
Being familiar with the hotel, I was at no loss to account for the means by which the villain had entered and fled. I dashed at once to the end of the balcony, which was within easy reach of the limbs of a tree that grew up from the court. As I peered down from the shadows, I heard a rustling noise, and the next instant I saw a man at the base of the tree; it must have taken him all this time to descend the trunk. I was sure that I recognized Mackenzie, and as he made off I took aim with my pistol and fired. A sharp cry and an oath followed the report, but the fellow sped on to the end of the court, where a passage led out to a back street. Here a voice hailed him; showing that one or more had shared his enterprise.
But a moment had passed since I leaped out of the window, and now I found Captain Rudstone at my side.
“Did you hit him?” he demanded.
“I think so,” I replied; “but he ran like a deer.”
“He’ll not run far if I can get sight of him. To take the scoundrel will be a good card in our hands!”
With that the captain swung himself into the tree, and went down hand over hand, from limb to limb, with the agility of a cat. He was on the ground before I could have counted ten.
“Do not follow me,” he called up: and then he vanished in the shadows across the court.