father was passing one end of the
rope through an opening at the corner of the parapet where the
rain-water ran through a leaded shoot into the upright leaden stack-pipe
which ran down the house and carried it into the drain.

Frank dimly made out that he knotted the rope carefully, and tried it by
pulling hard twice over, before throwing a few yards over the parapet
and letting the rest run through his hands till it was all down.

His next movement puzzled the boy, but he grasped the meaning directly
after.

They were at an angle now, and Sir Robert was carefully testing the
stone coping, to see if it were tight in its place and the pieces held
together by the iron clamps kept in their places by the running in of
molten lead.

Apparently satisfied, he turned quickly to where Frank stood, now
trembling, grasped his hand, and whispered:

"Have you a knife?"

"Yes, father."

"Cut the rope, and get back as soon as you can. Don't wait to listen
whether I elude the men."

"No, father."

Sir Robert stood holding his son's hand for a few moments, and listening
to the murmur of voices at the back of his house, where the soldiers
were talking rather excitedly.

"For liberty and life, Frank!" whispered Sir Robert then; and with the
perspiration standing in great drops on the boy's face, he saw his
father grasp the rope knotted so tightly from the hole by the lead on
which he stood over the stone coping, throw back his cloak, and then lay
himself flat on the parapet, and carefully lower his feet as he held on
by the stone. From that he lowered himself, and, partly supported by
the top of the leaden stack-pipe, he slowly changed his right hand to
the loop of the rope; then softly gliding by the wide-open head of the
pipe, he began to descend with the rope well twined round his right leg,
and held to the calf of his heavy boot by the edge of his left boot
sole.

"If the rope should break or come undone!" thought the boy, as he turned
cold and dropped upon his knees to reach over and grip the knot with
both hands, while his lips moved as he muttered a prayer, feeling the
thin cord quiver and jerk as if it were a strange nerve which connected
him with his father, who was below there somewhere in the darkness--jar,
thrill, and make a humming noise like the string of some huge bass
instrument, but so faint that it would have been inaudible at any other
time. But he could hear plainly enough, without any exaltation of