to listen, then ran
back to the window.

"Scarlett," he whispered, "there are the lights of a vessel at
anchor off Groix."

I was beside him in an instant. "It's the cruiser," I said. "Oh,
Speed, for a chance to signal!"

We looked at each other desperately.

"We could set the room afire," he said; "they might land to see what
had happened."

"And find us all shot."

Jacqueline, standing beside Speed, said, quietly: "I could swim it.
Wait. Raise the window a little."

"You cannot dive from that cliff!" I said.

She cautiously unlocked the window and peered out into the dark
garden.

"The cliff falls sheer from the wall yonder," she whispered. "I
shall try to drop. I learned much in the circus. I am not afraid,
Speed. I shall drop into the sea."

"To your death," I said.

"Possibly, m'sieu. It is a good death, however. I am not afraid."

"Close the window," muttered Speed. "They'd shoot her from the wall,
anyway."

Again the child gravely asked permission to try.

"No," said Speed, harshly, and turned away. But in that instant
Jacqueline flung open the window and vaulted into the garden. Before I
could realize what had happened she was only a glimmering spot in the
darkness. Then Speed and I followed her, running swiftly toward the
foot of the garden, but we were too late; a slim, white shape rose
from the top of the wall and leaped blindly out through the ruddy
torch glare into the blackness beyond.

We heard a soldier's startled cry, a commotion, curses, and astonished
exclamations from the other side of the wall.

"It was something, I tell you!" roared a soldier. "Something that
jumped over the cliff!"

"It was an owl, idiot!" retorted his comrade.

"I tell you I saw it!" protested the other, in a shaking voice.

"Then you saw a witch of Ker-Ys," bawled another. "Look out for your
skin in the first battle. It's death to see such things."

I looked at Speed. He stood wide-eyed, staring at vacancy.

"Could she do it?" I asked, horrified.

"God knows," he whispered.

Soldiers were beginning to clamber up the garden wall from the
outside; torches were raised to investigate. As we shrank back
into the shadow of the shrubbery I stumbled over something
soft--Jacqueline's clothes, lying in a circle as she had stepped out
of them.

Speed took them. I followed him, creeping back to the window, where we
entered in time to avoid discovery by a wretch who had succeeded in
mounting the wall, torch