rasped Owen's arm, while he pointed to a spy dogging them in the
distant gloom, who turned out to be a door-post. But Owen was now in
his element; no tom-cat in Tarifa was more familiar with housetops and
balconies at the witching hour than he, and he stepped gaily on.
Presently they were challenged by a sentry, to whom Owen promptly
advanced and slipped into his itching palm a doubloon, when the
trustworthy warrior immediately turned upon his heel, and, walking to
the extremity of his post, looked with great vigilance in the opposite
direction.

Owen advanced to a grated window and tapped. Immediately the burly
face of Francisco showed itself thereat, his white teeth glancing
merrily in a glimmer of moonshine. A bar, previously filed through,
was removed from the window, and Owen, taking him by the collar to
assist his egress, drew him through as far as the third button of his
waistcoat, where he stuck for a moment; but the substance was elastic,
and a lusty tug landed him in the middle of the narrow street.
Receiving Frank's instructions given in a hurried whisper, to go at
once to where the boat lay, and cast her off, ready to shove off on
the instant, he nodded and disappeared in the darkness, while Owen and
the Major made for the Governor's house.

Arrived near it, Owen gave a low whistle--a peculiar one, that my
grandfather remembered to have heard him practising to Juana on the
previous day--when, to the unutterable surprise of the Major, _two_
veiled figures appeared on the balcony.

"Why, Owen, boy, d'ye see!" quoth the Major, stuttering with anxiety,
"who can the other be?--her maid, eh?"--indistinct stage recollections
of intriguing waiting-women dawning on him.

"Ahem!--why, you see, Major," whispered Owen, "she wouldn't come
alone--couldn't manage it at all, in fact, without the knowledge of
her aunt, who sleeps in the next room; so I persuaded Carlota _to come
too_, and gave her a sort of half promise that _you_ would _take care
of her_." Here, wishing to cut short a rather awkward explanation, he
ran under the balcony--one of the ladies dropped a cord--and Owen
producing from under his coat a rope ladder, (he had sat up all night
making it), attached it, and, as soon as it was drawn up, ascended,
motioning to my astounded grandfather to keep it steady below. The
Major, after a moment's desperate half-resolve to make a hasty retreat
from the perilous incidents which seemed momentarily to thicken round