She came creeping through the dusk on hands and knees; he pushed the pistol into one hip pocket, the electric torch into the other, fastened the rope to his leather belt which she wore, motioned her to mount the sill.
"Listen! I shall follow. If _I_ fall, try to find Halkett in the square and tell him."
"Don’t be afraid. I could almost drop it without any cord to help me. Now! Are you ready?"
"Then sit this way—there! Now, turn and take hold of the sill with both hands—_that_ way! ... Now, you may let go——"
Her full weight on the cord frightened him; he braced his knees and paid out the rope which crushed and threatened to cut his hands in two.
Down, down into the dusk below he lowered her; his arms and back and ribs seemed turned to steel, so terrible was the fear that he might let her drop.
There remained yet a coil or two of rope when the cord in his staggering hands suddenly slackened. A shaft of fright pierced him; he bent shakily over the sill and looked down. She had not fallen; she stood on the terrace, unknotting the rope from her leather belt.
A moment later he drew it up, the belt dangling at the end. With trembling and benumbed hands he tested the knot tied to the grate; then, twisting the cord around both hands, he let himself over the sill, clung there, and lowered the window, hesitated, let his full weight hang, heard the iron grate drag and catch, then, blindly, twisting the cord around his left leg, he let himself down foot by foot, believing every moment that the cord would part or that the iron grate would be dragged up and over the sill, carry away the sash, and crush him.
And the next instant his feet touched the stone flagging and he turned to find Philippa at his side.
"Be silent," she breathed close to his ear. "A boat has just landed."
"At the foot of the garden. Two men are getting out!"
He knew that the rope would be discovered; he seized it and tried to break it loose. It held as though it had been woven of wire.
"There is a way into the cellar," whispered Philippa. "Can you lift this grating? It is only a drop of a foot or two!"
He bent down beside her in the shadows, felt the bars of the narrow grating overgrown with herbage, pulled upward and lifted it easily from its grassy bed. Philippa placed her hand flat on the dewy turf, and vaulted down into darkness. He balanced himself on the edge of the hole, turned and pulled the grating toward him, and dropped. The grating fell with a soft thud on the damp and grassy rim of the manhole. Philippa caught his hand.