d to raise her in his arms, her body was
limp and unresponsive.

At the same moment the men who had forced the door against him laid hold
upon him. The first he poniarded at a blow, and the others falling back
for a second in some disorder, he profited by the chance, bestrode the
window-sill, seized the cord in both hands, and let his body slip.

The cord was knotted, which made it the easier to descend; but so
furious was Dick's hurry, and so small his experience of such
gymnastics, that he span round and round in mid-air like a criminal upon
a gibbet, and now beat his head, and now bruised his hands, against the
rugged stonework of the wall. The air roared in his ears; he saw the
stars overhead, and the reflected stars below him in the moat, whirling
like dead leaves before the tempest. And then he lost hold, and fell,
and soused head over ears into the icy water.

When he came to the surface his hand encountered the rope, which, newly
lightened of his weight, was swinging wildly to and fro. There was a
red glow overhead, and looking up, he saw, by the light of several
torches and a cresset full of burning coals, the battlements lined with
faces. He saw the men's eyes turning hither and thither in quest of him;
but he was too far below, the light reached him not, and they looked in
vain.

And now he perceived that the rope was considerably too long, and he
began to struggle as well as he could towards the other side of the
moat, still keeping his head above water. In this way he got much more
than half-way over; indeed the bank was almost within reach, before the
rope began to draw him back by its own weight. Taking his courage in
both hands, he left go and made a leap for the trailing sprays of willow
that had already, that same evening, helped Sir Daniel's messenger to
land. He went down, rose again, sank a second time, and then his hand
caught a branch, and with the speed of thought he had dragged himself
into the thick of the tree and clung there, dripping and panting, and
still half uncertain of his escape.

But all this had not been done without a considerable splashing, which
had so far indicated his position to the men along the battlements.
Arrows and quarrels fell thick around him in the darkness, thick like
driving hail; and suddenly a torch was thrown down--flared through the
air in its swift passage--stuck for a moment on the edge of the bank,
where it burned high and lit up its whole surroundings li