en holding the inside
rope with both hands, he felt anxiously with his feet for the outside
rope, and when he had got it, he worked it in between the palms of his
feet, and kept it there tight: then he uttered a short prayer, and, all
the calmer for it, put his left hand on the sill and gradually wriggled
out. Then he seized the iron bar, and for one fearful moment hung
outside from it by his right hand, while his left hand felt for the rope
down at his knees; it was too tight against the wall for his fingers to
get round it higher up. The moment he had fairly grasped it, he left the
bar, and swiftly seized the rope with the right hand too; but in this
manoeuvre his body necessarily fell about a yard. A stifled cry came up
from below. Gerard hung in mid-air. He clenched his teeth, and nipped
the rope tight with his feet and gripped it with his hands, and went
down slowly hand below hand. He passed by one huge rough stone after
another. He saw there was green moss on one. He looked up and he looked
down. The moon shone into his prison window: it seemed very near. The
fluttering figures below seemed an awful distance. It made him dizzy to
look down: so he fixed his eyes steadily on the wall close to him, and
went slowly down, down, down.

He passed a rusty, slimy streak on the wall: it was some ten feet long.
The rope made his hands very hot. He stole another look up.

The prison window was a good way off now.

Down--down--down--down.

The rope made his hands sore.

He looked up. The window was so distant, he ventured now to turn his
eyes downward again; and there, not more than thirty feet below him,
were Margaret and Martin, their faithful hands upstretched to catch him
should he fall. He could see their eyes and their teeth shine in the
moonlight. For their mouths were open, and they were breathing hard.

"Take care, Gerard oh, take care! Look not down."

"Fear me not," cried Gerard joyfully, and eyed the wall, but came down
faster.

In another minute his feet were at their hands. They seized him ere he
touched the ground, and all three clung together in one embrace.

"Hush! away in silence, dear one."

They stole along the shadow of the wall.

Now, ere they had gone many yards, suddenly a stream of light shot from
an angle of the building, and lay across their path like a barrier of
fire, and they heard whispers and footsteps close at hand.

"Back!" hissed Martin. "Keep in the shade."

They hurried bac