sfy themselves, he was not optimist
enough to assume.

He abandoned his grip of the wall and began to swim gently toward the
eastern angle. If they came out, they must lower the bridge; he would
place himself so that in falling it should cover him and screen him from
their sight. He rounded the angle of the building, and now the friendly
cloud that had hung across the moon moved by, and a faint, silver
radiance was upon the water under his eyes. But yonder, ahead of him,
something black lay athwart the moat. At once he knew it for the bridge.
It was down. And he had the explanation in that he remembered that the
Lord Seneschal had not yet left Condillac. It mattered little to him one
way or the other. The bridge was there, and he made the best of it.

A few swift, silent strokes brought him to it. He hesitated a moment
before venturing into the darkness underneath; then, bethinking him that
it was that or discovery, he passed under. He made for the wall, and as
he groped along he found a chain depending and reaching down into the
water. He caught at it with both hands and hung by it to await events.

And now, for the first time that night, his pulses really quickened.
There in the dark he waited, and the moments that sped seemed very long
to him, and they were very anxious. He had no good sword wherewith to
defend himself were he attacked, no good, solid ground on which to take
his stand. If he were discovered, he was helpless, at their mercy, to
shoot, or take, or beat to death as best they listed. And so he waited,
his pulses throbbing, his breath coming short and fast. The cold water
that had invigorated him some minutes ago was numbing him now, and
seemed to be freezing his courage as it froze the blood in his veins,
the very marrow in his bones.

Presently his ears caught a rush of feet, a sound of voices, and
Fortunio's raised above the others. Heavy steps rang on the bridge
over his head, and the thud of their fall was like thunder to the man
beneath. A crimson splash of light fell on the moat on either side of
him. The fellow on the bridge had halted. Then the steps went on. The
light flared this way and that, and Garnache almost trembled, expecting
at every moment that its rays would penetrate the spot where he was
hanging and reveal him cowering there like a frightened water-rat. But
the man moved on, and his light flared no longer.

Then others followed him. Garnache heard the sounds of their search. So