over the cap, leaving the fuse free. He led Inez back to a safe
distance from the wall, and there, with eyes fastened on Roddy's
watch, they waited. The seconds dragged interminably. Neither spoke,
and the silence of the tunnel weighed upon them like the silence of a
grave. But even buried as they were many feet beneath the ramparts,
they could hear above them the reverberations of the cannon.

"They are firing in half-minute intervals," whispered Roddy. "I will
try to set off the dynamite when they fire, so that in the casements,
at least, no one will hear me. When the explosion comes," he directed,
"wait until I call you, and if I shout to you to run, for God's sake,"
he entreated, "don't delay an instant, but make for the mouth of the
tunnel."

Inez answered him in a tone of deep reproach. "You are speaking," she
said, "to a daughter of General Rojas." Her voice trembled, but, as
Roddy knew, it trembled from excitement. "You must not think of _me_,"
commanded the girl. "I am here to help, not to be a burden. And," she
added gently, her love speaking to him in her voice, "we leave this
place together, or not at all."

Her presence had already shaken Roddy, and now her words made the
necessity of leaving her seem a sacrifice too great to be required of
him. Almost brusquely, he started from her.

"I must go," he whispered. "Wish me good luck for your father."

"May God preserve you both!" answered the girl.

As he walked away Roddy turned and shifted his light for what he knew
might be his last look at her. He saw her, standing erect as a lance,
her eyes flashing. Her lips were moving and upon her breast her
fingers traced the sign of the cross.

[Illustration: Her fingers traced the sign of the cross.]

Roddy waited until his watch showed a minute to nine o'clock. To meet
the report of the next gun, he delayed a half-minute longer, and then
lit the fuse, and, running back, flattened himself against the side of
the tunnel. There was at last a dull, rumbling roar and a great crash
of falling rock. Roddy raced to the sound and saw in the wall a
gaping, black hole. Through it, from the other side, lights showed
dimly. In the tunnel he was choked with a cloud of powdered cement. He
leaped through this and, stumbling over a mass of broken stone, found
himself in the cell. Except for the breach in the wall the explosion
had in no way disturbed it. The furniture was in place, a book lay
untouched upon the table; in