Then Peter told them his story, how the faithful squire got the knight out of a high tower at Brescia.The manoeuvre, like most things that are really scientific, was so simple.that now their wonder was they had taken for impossible what was not even difficult.
The letter never went to Rotterdam.They trusted to Peter's learning and their own dexterity.
It was nine o'clock on a clear moonlight night; Gerard, senior, was still away; the rest of his little family had been some time abed.
A figure stood by the dwarf's bed.It was white, and the moonlight shone on it.
With an unearthly noise, between a yell and a snarl, the gymnast rolled off his bed and under it by a single unbroken movement.Asoft voice followed him in his retreat.
"Why, Giles, are you afeard of me?"
At this, Giles's head peeped cautiously up, and he saw it was only his sister Kate.
She put her finger to her lips."Hush! lest the wicked Cornelis or the wicked Sybrandt hear us." Giles's claws seized the side of the bed, and he returned to his place by one undivided gymnastic.
Kate then revealed to Giles that she had heard Cornelis and Sybrandt mention Gerard's name; and being herself in great anxiety at his not coming home all day, had listened at their door, and had made a fearful discovery.Gerard was in prison, in the haunted tower of the Stadthouse.He was there, it seemed, by their father's authority.But here must be some treachery; for how could their father have ordered this cruel act? He was at Rotterdam.She ended by entreating Giles to bear her company to the foot of the haunted tower, to say a word of comfort to poor Gerard, and let him know their father was absent, and would be sure to release him on his return.
"Dear Giles, I would go alone, but I am afeard of the spirits that men say do haunt the tower; but with you I shall not be afeard.""Nor I with you," said Giles."I don't believe there are any spirits in Tergou.I never saw one.This last was the likest one ever I saw; and it was but you, Kate, after all."In less than half an hour Giles and Kate opened the housedoor cautiously and issued forth.She made him carry a lantern, though the night was bright."The lantern gives me more courage against the evil spirits," said she.
The first day of imprisonment is very trying, especially if to the horror of captivity is added the horror of utter solitude.Iobserve that in our own day a great many persons commit suicide during the first twenty-four hours of the solitary cell.This is doubtless why our Jairi abstain so carefully from the impertinence of watching their little experiment upon the human soul at that particular stage of it.
As the sun declined, Gerard's heart too sank and sank; with the waning light even the embers of hope went out.He was faint, too, with hunger; for he was afraid to eat the food Ghysbrecht had brought him; and hunger alone cows men.He sat upon the chest, his arms and his head drooping before him, a picture of despondency.
Suddenly something struck the wall beyond him very sharply, and then rattled on the floor at his feet.It was an arrow; he saw the white feather.A chill ran through him - they meant then to assassinate him from the outside.He crouched.No more missiles came.He crawled on all fours, and took up the arrow; there was no head to it.He uttered a cry of hope: had a friendly hand shot it?
He took it up, and felt it all over: he found a soft substance attached to it.Then one of his eccentricities was of grand use to him.His tinder-box enabled him to strike a light: it showed him two things that made his heart bound with delight, none the less thrilling for being somewhat vague.Attached to the arrow was a skein of silk, and on the arrow itself were words written.
How his eyes devoured them, his heart panting the while!
Well beloved, make fast the silk to thy knife and lower to us: but hold thine end fast: then count an hundred and draw up.
Gerard seized the oak chest, and with almost superhuman energy dragged it to the window: a moment ago he could not have moved it.
