And so I will only say that by galleries, stairs and chambers we made our way in the darkness towards the southwest tower. Again and again boards creaked beneath our weight, and sometimes, do what we would, a hinge would whine: we made mistakes in our going and were forced to retrace the steps we had been at such pains to take; and we went at a true snail’s pace and as blind men go, for we dared not use our torches in case their light should betray us and ruin our game.
At break of day we stood in a little lobby that looked out upon the mountains and seemed at that misty moment to command the world.
The place had the look of a guardroom, and so, I am sure, it had served, for a wicket gave directly on to a winding stair, which if a man ascended he came to the roof, but, if he went down, he came to the “gallery of stone.” It was, indeed, the stairway of the southwest tower.
So we broke and entered into that jealous keep which for six long days had mocked us and all our works.
The need for caution was now paramount.
We stood at the enemy’s elbow, and he did not know we were there. We had our hand almost upon him; but he had his hand on Adèle. He was unready, but we did not know the ground. If we could strike before he could, the game was ours: but if we were to be behindhand, we had better be sitting at Lass with our hands in our lap.
We afterwards found that there were in the tower three apartments, consisting of two rooms each. These were a bedroom and bathroom, very well done. The window from which Adèle had signalled was that of the middle apartment, the door of which, as she had told us, gave into the “gallery of stone.”
For a long time we crouched like animals, straining our ears; but we could hear no sound. Then Mansel breathed his orders, and we began to move. …
George stood fast in the lobby, ready to shoot at sight: Bell and Rowley stole three steps up the stair and stayed with their backs to the wall and their knives in their hands: and Mansel, with me behind him, began to go down. …
It was dark in the gallery, for all its five doors were shut, but a pale smear of light was betraying the threshold of the door which led to the terrace steps. That gave us our bearings at once, but, if there was someone there, we could not see him, and the silence all about us was that of death.
Then came a sigh of the wind, and something moved.
It was a door on our right—the door of the prisoner’s room.
Very slowly we watched it open, letting the daylight out. I could see Mansel just before me, covering the gap with his pistol and steady as any rock. I could see beyond him and into the very room. The floor was bare and polished, and the walls were panelled with oak.
Then, very slowly, the door began to close.
In a flash Mansel had stopped it, and we were within the room.
This was empty.
A window had been left open, and that had occasioned the draught. The bathroom was empty, too. Adèle was gone.
Two minutes later we had proved the truth to the hilt.
The three apartments were vacant, and the door to the roof was shut. Rose Noble, prisoner and all had withdrawn to the opposite tower.
It was a bitter business.
That our labour was lost was nothing: but the waste of time shocked us, and the thought that, so far from progressing, we were now twice as far from Adèle as we had been at the time when we stood in the porch was plain torment.
That we never had any doubt where Rose Noble and his prisoner were gone, I attribute to Mansel alone. Only a brilliant perception can rip the skin off an assumption and bare a fact. Everything certainly argued withdrawal to the southeast tower: but that was not nearly enough. We had to know. And Mansel knew.
I have said we were now twice the distance that we had been from Adèle. And so it seemed, for we dared not use the roof during the day and, as we had reason to know, the way by the Royal Apartments was straitly barred. Yet the thought of returning to the porch and thence beginning again to grope our way was hardly to be endured, because the clock was against us and we feared to let go so much time. Cross the porch in daylight we could not, because of the man on the roof. We must, therefore, wait until nightfall to make the move—some sixteen hours of inaction, when time was so very dear. The harder we stared upon this prospect, the more ugly and hazardous it grew: the more the daylight broadened, the more perilous seemed delay. Any moment Rose Noble might discover that Mansel and I had escaped: any moment the kitchen might be entered, and Hanbury’s release become known: any moment one of the gang might stumble into our arms, and, though we could stop his mouth, his failure to reappear would tell its tale. And if none of these things happened and we lay close until night, would our passage be so successful as the passage that we had made? Was there a way within doors to the southeast tower? And what of the caretakers? That we had not found them last night suggested most strongly that their rooms lay the other side: and if we encountered the woman, she
