' this.
_Here's_ the box.'

'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible relief
advancing at last a few steps.

Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all depended
on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought if I
had happened to wear silk instead of the cachmere I had on that night, its
rustle would have betrayed me.

I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of
his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the dull light of the
window, like a shape cut in card.

He was saying 'just to _there_,' and pointing with his long arm at that
contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door
was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy
box, with my jewel-case in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a
great breath--with a mental prayer for help--I glided on tiptoe from the
room and found myself on the gallery floor.

I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in the
dark, not running--I was too fearful of making the least noise--but walking
with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror. At the termination of this was a
cross-gallery, one end of which--that to my left--terminated in a great
window, through which the dusky night-view was visible. With the instinct
of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right; hurrying
through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a light,
about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches
this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed
me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight I suppose for the cool
night-air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkes notwithstanding his
maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for
consideration.

He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his
wooden leg.

At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered; it was a short
passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a backstair, but the door
at the end was locked.

I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no shelter,
while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had some
idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to my
hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched the long snuff with his
horny finger and thumb.

Having listened f