Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/50

 case. Then he tried to pierce my vizard with his eyes, and then rose with slow pain to his feet and pushed his handcuffed wrists towards me, for he had seen me take forth the file. I attacked at once the stout chains by which they were clinched together, and in which the cord was looped. 'Twas no light employ, let me assure you. The file rasped without surcease on the steel for the best part of an hour, and I put such an energy in the task that long before I had bitten through the gyve my fingers ached most bitterly, and I could feel the sweat shining in my face. Whoever it was that had put those fetters on, 'twas plain he was no tyro in the art. But that winter night, had my business been to reduce a castle with my single hand I could have razed it to the earth, I think. Therefore, at last I overcame the stubborn bonds, and in something less than a minute afterwards the desperate rebel had all his members free. I am not sure but what a bond was forged about his heart though. For in the stern assaults I had directed on his chains the spring that held my vizard fell away, the patch of velvet dropped into the straw, and lo! at the lifting of my eyes, I stood unmasked before him. And perhaps I was not sorry for it, since—the charming fellow!—no sooner did he discover that his hands were out of durance than he uttered a low cry of pleasure and of gratitude, and when he regarded his deliverer his eyes became so bright that they must have been sensible of joy. But I was determined that in this present instance, no matter how