As I spoke the dog began to bark. That it was the dog belonging to the house I could not swear. The sound, nevertheless, proceeded from the direction of the yard in which my sweetheart had told me the dog was chained. The deep and melancholy note was like that of a bloodhound giving tongue. It was reverberated by the convent wall and seemed to penetrate to the farthest distance, awaking the very echoes of the sleeping river Liane, and it filled the breathless pause that had fallen upon us with a torment of inquietude and expectation. After a few minutes the creature ceased.
"He"ll be a whopper, sir. Big as a pony, sir, if his voice don"t belie him," said Caudel, fetching a deep breath. "I was once bit by a dawg----" he was about to spin a yarn.
"For heaven"s sake! now bear a hand and get your bull"s eye alight," I angrily whispered, at the same moment s.n.a.t.c.hing up his coat and so holding it as to effectually screen his figure from the house.
Feeling over the coat he pulled out the little bull"s-eye lamp and a box of matches, and catching with oceanic dexterity the flame of the lucifer in the hollow of his hands, he kindled the wick, and I immediately closed the lantern with its gla.s.s eclipsed. This done, I directed my eyes at the black smears of growths--for thus they showed--lying round about us, in search of a path; but apparently we were on the margin of some wide tract of vegetables, through which we should have to thrust to reach the stretch of sward that, according to the description in my pocket, lay immediately under the balcony from which my sweetheart was to descend.
"Pick up that ladder--by the hooks--see they don"t clank--crouch low; make a bush of yourself as I do, and come along," said I.
Foot by foot we groped our way towards the tall, thin shadow of the house through the cabbages--to give the vegetation a name--and presently arrived at the edge of the sward; and now we had to wait until the clock struck one. Fortunately there were some bushes here, but none that rose higher than our girth, and this obliged us to maintain a posture of stooping which in a short time began to tell upon Caudel"s rheumatic knees, as I knew by his snuffling and uneasy movements, though the heart of oak suffered in silence.
CHAPTER II
THE ELOPEMENT
This side of the house lay so black against the fine, clear, starry dusk of the sky that it was impossible to see the outlines of the windows in it. I could manage, however, to faintly trace the line of the balcony. My heart beat fast as I thought that even now my darling might be standing at the window peering through it, waiting for the signal flash. Caudel was thinking of her too.
"The young lady, begging of your pardon, sir, must be a gal of uncommon spirit, Mr. Barclay."
"She loves me, Caudel, and love is the most animating of spirits, my friend."
"I dorn"t doubt it, sir. What room will it be that she"s to come out of?"
"The dining-room--a big, deserted apartment where the girls take their meals."
""Tain"t her bedroom, then?"
"No. She is to steal dressed from her bedroom to the _salle-a-manger_--"
"The Sally what, sir?"
"No matter, no matter," I answered.
I pulled out my watch, but there was no power in the starlight to reveal the dial-plate. All continued still as the tomb, saving at fitful intervals a low note of silken rustling that stole upon the ear with some tender, dream-like gushing of night-air, as though the atmosphere had been stirred by the sweep of a large, near, invisible pinion.
"This here posture ain"t so agreeable as dancing," hoa.r.s.ely grumbled Caudel, "could almost wish myself a dwarf. That there word beginning with a Sally--"
"Not so loud, man; not so loud."
"It"s oncommon queer," he persisted, "to feel one"s self in a country where one"s language ain"t spoke. The werry soil don"t seem natural.
As to the language itself, burst me if I can understand how a man masters it. I was once trying to teach an Irish sailor how to dance a quadrille. "Now, Murphy," says I to him, "you onderstand you"re my wiz-a-wee?" "What"s dat you call me?" he cried out. "You"re anoder and a d.a.m.n scoundrel besoides!" Half the words in this here tongue sound like cussing of a man. And to think of a dining-room being called a Sally--"
The convent clock struck one.
"Now," said I, "stand by."
I held up the lamp, and so turned the darkened part as to produce two flashes. A moment after a tiny flame showed and vanished above the balcony.
"My brave darling!" I exclaimed. "Have you the ladder in your hand?"
"Ay, sir."
"Mind these confounded hooks don"t c.h.i.n.k."
We stepped across the sward and stood under the balcony.
"Grace, my darling, is that you?" I called in a low voice.
"Yes, Herbert. Oh, please be quick. I am fancying I hear footsteps.
My heart is scarcely beating for fright."
But despite the tremble in her low, sweet voice my ear seemed to find strength of purpose enough in it to satisfy me that there would be no failure from want of courage on her part. I could just discern the outline of her figure as she leaned over the balcony, and see the white of her face vague as a fancy.
"My darling, lower the line to pull the ladder up with--very softly, my pet--there are iron hooks which make a noise."
In a few moments she called: "I have lowered the line."
I felt about with my hand and grasped the end of it--a piece of twine, but strong enough to support the ladder. The deep, blood-hound-like baying of the dog recommenced, and at the same time I heard a sound of footsteps in the lane.
"Hist! Not a stir--not a whisper," I breathed out.
It was the staggering step of a drunken man. He broke maudlingly into a song when immediately abreast of us, ceased his noise suddenly and halted. This was a little pa.s.sage of agony, I can a.s.sure you! The dog continued to utter its sullen, deep-throated bark in single strokes like the beat of a bell. Presently there was a sound as of the scrambling and crunching of feet, followed with the noise of a lurching tread; the man fell to drunkenly singing to himself again and so pa.s.sed away up the lane.
Caudel fastened the end of the twine to the ladder, and then grunted out: "All ready for hoisting."
"Grace, my sweet," I whispered, "do you hear me?"
"Distinctly, dearest; but I am so frightened!"
"Pull up this ladder softly and hook the irons on to the rim of the balcony."
"Blast that dawg!" growled Caudel, "dummed if I don"t think he smells us."
The ladder went rising into the air.
"It is hooked, Herbert."
"All right, Caudel, swing off upon the end of it--test it, and then aloft with you for mercy"s sake!"
The three metal rungs held the ropes bravely stretched apart. The seaman sprang, and the ladder held as though it had been the shrouds of a man-of-war.
"Now, Caudel, you are a seaman--you must do the rest," said I.
He had removed his boots, and, mounting with cat-like agility, gained the balcony; then taking my sweetheart in his arms he lifted her over the rail and lowered her with his powerful arms until her little feet were half-way down the ladder. She uttered one or two faint exclamations, but was happily too frightened to cry out.
"Now, Mr. Barclay," hoa.r.s.ely whispered Caudel, "you kitch hold of her, sir."