ped it as if it were a
serpent. There was something weird, uncanny in its presence, losing
itself as it did in the darkness but a few feet above her head. Again
she heard the shout, and this time she called out a question.

"Yes," was the answer, far above. "Can you hear me?" Greatly excited,
she called back that she could hear and understand. "I'm coming down the
rope. Pray for us--but don't worry! Please go inside until we land in
the garden. It's a long drop, you know."

"Are you quite sure--is it safe?" she called, shuddering at the thought
of the perilous descent of nearly three, hundred feet, sheer through the
darkness.

"It's safer than stopping here. Please go inside."

She dully comprehended his meaning: he wanted to save her from seeing
his fall in the event that the worst should come to pass. Scarcely
knowing what she did, she moved over into the shadow near the walls and
waited breathlessly, all the time wondering why some one did not come
from the chateau to lend assistance.

At last that portion of the rope which lay in the garden began to jerk
and writhe vigorously. She knew then that he was coming down, hand over
hand, through that long, dangerous stretch of darkness. Elsewhere in
this narrative, it has been stated that the cliff reared itself sheer to
the height of three hundred and fifty feet directly behind the chateau.
At the summit of this great wall, a shelving ledge projected over the
hanging garden; a rope dangling from this ledge would fall into the
garden not far from the edge nearest the cliff. The summit of the cliff
could be gained only by traversing the mountain slope from the other
side; it was impossible to scale it from the floor of the valley which
it bounded. A wide table-land extended back from the ledge for several
hundred yards and then broke into the sharp, steep incline to the summit
of the mountain. This table-land was covered by large, stout trees,
thickly grown.

The rope was undoubtedly attached to the trunk of a sturdy tree at the
brow of the cliff.

She could look no longer; it seemed hours since he started from the top.
Every heart-beat brought him nearer to safety, but would he hold out?
Any instant might bring him crashing to her feet--dead, after all that
he may have lived through during that awful night.

At last she heard his heavy panting, groaning almost; the creaking and
straining of the rope, the scraping of his hands and body. She opened
her eyes and saw