Page:A courier of fortune (1904).djvu/235

Rh But there was yet much to do, and what course to take was a hard problem to solve.

Could Gabrielle have ventured to trust herself with him on the rope, the way would have been easy enough; but her nerve had so failed her that he feared to ask her again.

There was nothing for it, therefore, but to put a bold face on things and to find their way out together as best they could. Leave her he would not, come what might. After what had occurred, nothing should induce him to let her stay within reach of the mad fiend this Governor would be when once he was liberated from the cell.

He had prevented her being seen, it was true; but the Governor would set such inquiries on foot that her presence in that part of the Castle would be surely discovered; and what would follow the discovery no one could attempt to say.

Yet the time was pressing with cruel insistence. Any minute might bring de Proballe upon the scene with the men who were to apply the torture. And under the spur of this thought, Gerard made his plan.

With a threat to his prisoner to lie still on pain of death, he gave Gabrielle her cloak with a sign to put it on, and tearing off his coat, he whispered to her to take it, find Pierre, get Dubois liberated, and tell him to give her his monk's garb.

"Lose not a second," he whispered earnestly. "It may mean our lives."

He opened the cell door, saw her speed away on her errand, and turned to finish his preparations.

Hauling in the rope ladder, lest it should be seen and rouse suspicions, he cut the ropes, and having bound the Governor securely hand and foot, improvised a gag with part of the bedclothes.

He had just finished his task, working with desperate