his
senses, that the soldiers were talking earnestly not a hundred yards
away, their voices rising clearly to where the boy knelt.

How long was it that he could feel that vibration of the cord which
thrilled through him right to his toes, and made his hair feel as if it
were being lifted from his scalp? Ten minutes--five minutes--a quarter
of an hour? Not many seconds, and then it stopped; and the horror of
feeling it suddenly slacken and hearing a heavy crashing fall did not
assail the anxious boy, though he had fully expected it. The vibration
ceased, and there was a quick, warning shake, which Frank interpreted to
mean a signal for him to remember his orders, and hasten back to the
house.

He would have liked to lean over, listening and straining his sight to
follow the further movements of his father; but Sir Robert had,
unconsciously to both, gradually disciplined his son into a prompt,
soldierly way of instantly obeying orders, and directly that wave had
passed up to him, Frank's knife was out, and the rope, after a good deal
of sawing, was cut through, the knife replaced, and the cord was rapidly
drawn up, and laid down on the leads in a loose coil.

He bent over then for a moment or two and listened, but all was still
just below. There was no alarm such as he had dreaded, no shouting and
firing of shots; and gathering up the rope, he hurried back along the
narrow leads, using the same precaution of leaning inward, passed from
house to house quickly, and kept on asking himself what he should do to
hide the rope.

No idea came, and he had nearly reached home before it flashed across
his brain, and he drew a breath of relief.

There was a hiding-place just before him, at the top of the low ridge of
the house two doors away from his own. A low chimney was smoking
steadily, and without pausing to think whether it was wise or no he
crept up the slates, reached the ridge, grasped the side of the chimney
stack, and stood upright, finding that he could just reach the top of
the smoking pot.

That was enough. The next minute he had the end of the rope passed in;
and resting his wrists on the top of the pot, he drew and drew, rather
slowly at first, but more and more rapidly as the descending end gained
weight, and at last sufficed to run it down, and then it was gone.

He slid down the slates, and, feeling relieved of an incubus, he reached
their own house, glided in at the dormer, shut and bolted the door,