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CHAPTER V--HOW DICK CHANGED SIDES
Dick, blowing out his lamp lest it should attract attention, led the way
up-stairs and along the corridor. In the brown chamber the rope had been
made fast to the frame of an exceeding heavy and ancient bed. It had not
been detached, and Dick, taking the coil to the window, began to lower it
slowly and cautiously into the darkness of the night. Joan stood by; but
as the rope lengthened, and still Dick continued to pay it out, extreme
fear began to conquer her resolution.
"
Dick," she said, "is it so deep? I may not essay it. I should
infallibly fall, good Dick."
It was just at the delicate moment of the operations that she spoke.
Dick started; the remainder of the coil slipped from his grasp, and the
end fell with a splash into the moat. Instantly, from the battlement
above, the voice of a sentinel cried, "Who goes?"
"A murrain!" cried Dick. "We are paid now! Down with you--take the
rope."
"
"
I cannot," she cried, recoiling.
An ye cannot, no more can I," said Shelton. "How can I swim the moat
without you? Do you desert me, then?"
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