There was no answer, and priest and jailer looked slowly round the cell, then at each other, and then at the barred window. No ray of moonlight came through it now, but the moonlit sky was clear without, and there was no one crouching on the ledge!
The measured tread halting suddenly below, and the sound of the grating key within, had had a paralyzing effect upon both fugitive and guide for a moment. Although prepared to make a fight for it, the position appeared hopeless to Herrick; but the dwarf, who had perhaps foreseen that they would have the sentry to deal with, was quick to grasp the situation and see the way out of the difficulty. The terrace, which was considerably above the level of the floor of the cell, was only some twelve or fourteen feet below them. It was comparatively narrow and bounded by a low, battlemented wall.
"That's our road," whispered the dwarf, pointing to a certain point in this wall a little to their right. "Jump, and make for it."
As he spoke he whipped out his knife, and tucking his legs under him suddenly let himself drop upon the sentry. The thud of the fall and a feeble, stifled groan were all Herrick heard as he, too, jumped from the ledge, and, trusting implicitly to his companion, ran to the spot he had indicated. As he looked back, the dwarf rose and came quickly after him, but the sentry lay under the window and did not move.
"You have killed him!" Herrick exclaimed.
"Sharp, after me," the dwarf said, springing onto the wall, and then, as Herrick followed him, he threw himself on his stomach, twisted himself round, and holding onto the rough stonework let his legs hang down on the outside of the wall. "That's it, do the same. There's a rope here. Go steady! I'll go first. Now let me catch hold of your feet, and get the rope between them. The stones are rough enough to lower yourself by until you get a grasp on the rope with your hands."
This was the outer wall of the castle, and in the angle formed by a buttress a stout rope had been fixed.
Herrick found it no easy matter to follow the dwarf's instructions, and had he paused to consider, might have declined to make the perilous descent at all. But with Jean's help from below he managed to get the rope between his knees, and the rest was comparatively easy.
Some distance below was the roof of a house which clung to the castle wall like a mussel to a rock. The dwarf caught Herrick to steady him as he landed on the roof, for it sloped at a sharp angle, and was dilapidated.
"Sit, and put your hand on my shoulder, and shuffle down after me," he said. "Now carefully. Catch hold of this rafter. Let yourself swing, and drop lightly. It's barely four feet fall for your length of body."