Azrael hastily filed right round the whole of the link which Hassan’s smith had thought good to form of silver only on the outside, thinking that the fraud would never be discovered, and behold, the hard impervious substance which resisted the file was nothing but—glass.
“Ah!” said Azrael, “all the better for us, the work will be quicker;” and seizing an iron candlestick, she broke in pieces with a single blow the whole of the glass chain which was only covered by a light varnish of silver, only the two locked golden manacles remained in their hands.
“We shall be ready all the sooner,” she whispered to Mariska, “now we must make haste and get you off.”
But Mariska still stood before her like one who knows not what is befalling her.
“Hast thou thought how we are to escape?” she inquired of Azrael. “The guards of Hassan Pasha stand at every door, and all the doors have been locked by his own hand. In front of the gates of the fortress the sentinels have been doubled. I heard what commands he gave.”
“I have nought to do with doors or guards; we are going to escape through the window.”
Mariska looked at Azrael incredulously; she fancied she had gone mad. She could see nothing in the room by which they could descend from the window, and below stood the thickly planted sharp stakes.
“Help me to let down this gobaea ladder!” said Azrael, and quick as a squirrel herself, she leaped on the edge of the great porcelain tub, and thrust aside the vigorous shoots of the plant from its natural ladder within, which grew right up to the roof and thence descended again to its own roots.
Mariska began to see that her companion knew what she was about. She hastened to give her assistance, lowered the pliable trunk, and, looking round to see if anyone was watching, bent the branches towards the window.
But still it was too short. The longest creepers only reached to the edges of the palisade, and one could not count upon the green sprouts at the end of the creepers. Even if the ladder which formed the flower were attached to it, it would still not reach to the bottom of the trench.
Azrael looked around the room to see if she could find anything. Suddenly she had hit upon it.
“Give me those scissors,” she said to Mariska, and when the latter had returned to her, the odalisque had already let down her flowing tresses. Four long locks as black as night, reaching below her knee, the crown of a woman’s beauty which make men rejoice in her, were twining there on the floor.
“Give me the scissors!” she said to Mariska.
“Wouldst thou cut off thy hair?” asked the Princess, holding back.
“Yes, yes, what does it matter? It is wanted for the rope, and it will be quite strong enough.”
“Rather cut off mine!” said Mariska. With noble emulation she took from her head her small pearl haube, and loosened her own tresses, which, if not so long and so full of colour, at least rivalled those of her comrade in quantity.
“Good; the two together will make the rope stronger,” said Azrael; and with that the two ladies began clipping off their luxurious locks one by one with the little scissors. One marvellously beautiful tress after another flowed from the head of the odalisque. When the last had fallen, a teardrop also followed it.
Then she picked up the splendid tresses and began plaiting them together into strong knots.
“Wouldst thou ever have thought,” said Azrael, “that the locks of thy hair would be so intermingled?”
Mariska gratefully pressed the hand of the odalisque.
“How can I ever thank you for your goodness?”
“Think not of it. Fate orders it so—and someone else,” she muttered softly.
And now the attached ladder was long enough to reach the bottom of the palisades. Then they pitched down all the pillows and cushions of the divans till they covered the sharp stakes, so that their points might not hurt the fugitives. Moreover, Azrael tied the tough shoots of the gobaea to the cross piece of the window with the wraps of her turban and girdle.
“And now let me go first,” said the odalisque, when all was ready; “if the branches of the creeper do not break beneath me, then thou canst come boldly after me, for thou and the child together are not heavier than I am.”
The sky was dark and obscured by clouds; no one saw a white shape descending from one of the black windows of the fortress down the wall, lower and lower, till at last it got to the bottom and vanished in the depths of the ditch.
Mariska was waiting above there with a beating heart till the odalisque had descended; a tug at the gobaea-rope informed her that Azrael was already below, and Mariska could come after her.
A supplicating sigh to God ascended from the anxious bosom of the Princess at that supreme moment of trial; then she fastened to her breast with the folds of her garment the little one, who, fortunately, was still sound asleep, and stepping from the window entrusted herself to the yawning abyss below.
And, indeed, she had need of the most confident trust in God during this hazardous experiment, for if the child had awoke, the Komparajis pacing the bastions would have heard his tearful little wail at once, and it would have been all over with the fugitives.
Nothing happened. Mariska reached the ditch in safety, together with her child. Azrael assisted her to descend, and then they began to creep along among the trenches on the river’s bank. It was not advisable to clamber upon the trenches, as there they might have encountered a sentinel at any moment.
At last they came to the end of the ditch where two bastions joined together, forming a little oblique opening, through which one could look down on the town of Pest.
Before the little opening stood a Komparaji leaning on his
