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"Up Jacob's-ladder," said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers. I shook my head. I was savage, sir. "The ladder's carried away." "I cast it off," said she, with a smile. "Then," said I, "you must have come while I was asleep." Another thought came on me heavy as a ton of lead. "And where's he?" said I. "Where's the boat?" "He's drowned," said she, as easy as that.
'You must let me climb first, said the knave; and had no sooner reached the ladder's top than two or three pistol shots were fired upon him from the window and as many hands reached out and stabbed him through and through until he dropped into the ditch; whence, however, he sprang on his feet, and catching our hidalgo by the arm hurried him back through the garden to the gate where his horse stood tethered.
"Up to the neck!" "When did 'e go in?" "Nearly an hour ago; when I sent the messenger." "Which way?" "Up through number seventeen." "Next door, eh?" "That's right." "Over the roof?" "Can't say; he's left no tracks. I been up to see." "I suppose there's the usual ladder and trapdoor?" "Yes, but the ladder's hanging in its proper place. He couldn't have put it back there, could he?"
She could but mount her guard at the ladder's foot. And there were two exits to that garret room. That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr inviting me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to dine with him at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from which I begged to be excused, as it was best that I look to my Indians when any rum was served in camp.
It could not have been more than a few seconds that I lay senseless there upon the northern ice, while all that was dearest to me drifted farther from my reach in the clutches of that black fiend, for when I opened my eyes Thurid and Matai Shang yet battled at the ladder's top, and the flier drifted but a hundred yards farther to the south but the end of the trailing rope was now a good thirty feet above the ground.
I have always accounted it more good luck than good seamanship which brought us to the cove at last, and set us all, wet but cheerful, on the dry, white sand about the ladder's foot. There was shelter in the bay both for man and ship, and when we'd dragged the longboat up on the beach we gave Harry Doe his orders and left him to his duty.
She followed my gaze, hesitated, shot a keen and almost hostile glance at me, softened and coloured, then stole across the room to the ladder's foot. I lifted the lantern, followed her, and mounted, lighting the way for her along low-hanging eaves among the rustling husks.
And that Wednesday night, a week later, on my way to the "dollar meeting" at Doctor June's, I turned toward the Friendship Carnival with some vestige of my youth clinging to the hem of things. Look! Look! Look!" through a megaphone, while a good little dog toiled up a ladder and then stood at the ladder's top in a silence that was all nice reticence and dignity.
But when they have fixt it and so got above the level of the top of the wall, the four men unfasten the wicker-shields from either side of the stage and walk out upon the battlements or towers as the case may be; they are followed by their comrades coming up by the Sambuca, since the ladder's foot is safely secured with ropes and stands upon both the ships.
Worth was pushing aside pails and boxes to make a better way for her to the ladder's foot. "There wouldn't be a roof scuttle in the rented rooms, so I knew when you called in to tell us there was none in the halls." "I didn't. I said nothing of the sort." Where was the girl's fine memory that she couldn't recollect a man's words for the little time I'd been gone!
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