Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/115

 stable only, three of their steeds had to be elsewhere furnished. The Corporal, John Pensioner, and another soldier, had led their animals into the one we occupied, whilst the others had taken theirs to the one adjoining. Choosing a moment when all the men were in the stables the prisoner dropped a truss of straw down gently ten feet to the stones. Then we listened painfully to learn if this movement had been discerned by those within. Seemingly they were all unconscious of it, for they went on uninterruptedly in the bedding of their horses. Therefore the moment was still propitious, and I ventured my descent. Quickly I stepped to the edge of the loft, got through the wide bars that enclosed the provender, dropped upon my knees, tightly grasped my companion's outstretched hands, swayed an instant above the space that intervened between me and the straw, was lowered several inches nearer to the ground by virtue of the rebel's offices, then renounced my grasp of him and leapt lightly on to the cushion that awaited me beneath. The shock of the fall was of the slightest, and left me ready for an immediate flight. This was truly fortunate, as it was evident that my descent had been duly noted by the Corporal and his men. Hearing a commotion in the stable and various astonished cries, I began to run at once, and was, perhaps, the best part of a hundred yards away ere they came fuming and shouting from the stables and were at last alive to my retreat.

"The horses, men, the horses!" bawled the