Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/197

Rh them could do anything but sob and laugh and kiss the other distractedly. At last they grew sufficiently calm for speech.

“Oh, Gysbert, my brother! Art thou truly unharmed and well? How did this dreadful thing happen?” breathed Jacqueline.

“Yes, I am alive and whole,” he replied, “but how I got here is a long story which  I will tell thee later. But what about thee, Jacqueline? Thou art soaking wet! How didst thou come to be caught in the same  trap?” In rapid sentences she sketched the  history of the night’s adventures.

“The scoundrel!” exclaimed Gysbert. “He must have brought thee through that same hole in the wall. I felt sure he had been planning to capture thee, but to-night  when thou wert thrown so violently into the room, I could not tell whether it was thyself  or some new trap he had been setting for me. Not till I heard thee moan was I sure. He has some deep-laid scheme in getting