ready to dare any height; and he
thought a rope would make all things sure. Nothing could be attempted
till the next night, or rather morning, and Sigismund decided on sending
a messenger down to the Franciscans to borrow or purchase a rope, while
George and Ringan, more used to shifts, proceeded to twist together all
the horses' halters they could collect, so as to form a strong cable.

To avert suspicion, Sigismund appeared to have yielded to the murmurs
of his people, and sent more than half his troop down the hill, in the
expectation that he was about to follow. The others were withdrawn under
one clump of wood, the Scotsmen under another, with orders to advance
upon the gateway of the castle so soon as they should hear a summons
from the Duke's bugle, or the cry, 'A Douglas!' Neither Sir Gebhardt nor
Sir Robert was young enough or light enough to attempt the climb, each
would fain have withheld his master, had it been possible, but they
would have their value in dealing with the troop waiting below.

So it came to pass that when Eleanor, anxious, sorrowful, heated, and
weary, awoke at daydawn and crept from the side of her sleeping sister
to inhale a breath of morning breeze and murmur a morning prayer, as she
gazed from her loophole over the woods with a vague, never-quenchable
hope of seeing something, she became aware of something very stealthy
below--the rustling of a fox, or a hare in the fern mayhap, though she
could not see to the bottom of the quarry, but she clung to the
bar, craned forward, and beheld far down a shaking of the ivy and
white-flowered rowan; then a hand, grasping the root of a little sturdy
birch, then a yellow head gradually drawn up, till a thin, bony, alert
figure was for a moment astride on the birch. Reaching higher, the
sunburnt, freckled face was lifted up, and Eleanor's heart gave a great
throb of hope. Was it not the wild boy, Ringan Raefoot? She could not
turn away her head, she durst not even utter a word to those
within, lest it should be a mere fancy, or a lad from the country
bird's-nesting. Higher, higher he went, lost for a moment among the
leaves and branches, then attaining a crag, in some giddy manner. But,
but--what was that head under a steel cap that had appeared on the tree?
What was that face raised for a moment? Was it the face of the dead?
Eleanor forced back a cry, and felt afraid of wakening herself from what
she began to think only a blissful dream,--all the mo