Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN: The Escape

Next day was Sunday. It was a blind day at Ballamoar, with a chill air and white mists sweeping up from the sea.

In the morning Stowell went to church. In the afternoon he sat in the Library, reading in many volumes the stories of prison-breakings and escapes. He saw that in nearly every case of failure chance had played a part at the last moment, and he thought hard to foresee every possible contingency.

Towards evening he brought his car round from the garage and told Janet not to wait up for him. She had delivered Fenella's message ("Tell him to come back to me") and thought she knew where he was going to. He was going to Government House. The sweet old soul was very happy.

"I'll leave the piazza door on the catch, dear," she said, as he was going off into the moving shadows of the trees.

By the time he reached Castletown the mist had deepened to a fog. The broad tower of the Castle looked monstrously large and forbidding against the gloom of the sky, and the fog-horn of the light-house on Langness was blowing with a measured and melancholy sound across the unseen sea.

Coming upon a tholthan (a ruined cottage) by the roadside he ran his car into it, and then walked into the town.

The little place was once the capital of the island, and still retained many of its primitive characteristics. There were no lamps in the streets, which were therefore quite dark. Only a few of the houses gave out light, for the younger children were already in bed, and their parents were trooping to church or chapel.

The church bells were ringing. Save for that, and the footsteps of his fellow pedestrians who walked in the darkness beside him, Stowell heard nothing but the blowing of the far-off fog-horn. Everything favoured his design. "It was meant to be," he told himself.

Nevertheless he was conscious of making his steps light and of trying to escape observation. He took the least frequented thoroughfares, so that he might walk fast and not be recognised, but in a narrow lane that ran along under the Castle he came upon a pitiful spectacle and was compelled to stop.

An elderly woman, wearing little except her nightdress, with her feet bare and her long grey hair hanging loose, was kneeling on the paved way and praying.

"Oh Lord, as Thou didst send Thine angel to take Peter out of prison, send him now to take my poor girl out of the Castle."

By a dull light from a curtained window, Stowell saw who the poor demented creature was. It was Mrs. Collister. Little as he desired it, he had to pick her up and take her home.

"Come, mother," he said, raising her to her feet.

She looked into his face with awe, and permitted herself to be led away by the hand like a child. A group of boys and girls who had gathered round told him where she lived and that she was the mother of the woman who was to be "hangt" in the morning.

Just then the people, a man and his wife, with whom she lodged, came hurrying up, saying they had left her in bed while they went into their yard on some errand and on returning to the kitchen they had missed her.

In a few moments they were all at the open door of the house, a tiny place two steps down from the street, with a lamp burning on the table.

Finding the light on his face Stowell said Good-evening and hurried away, but not before the man and his wife had seen him.

"That must be the young Dempster," said the man.

"It was his father," said Mrs. Collister.

"But his father is dead, woman," said the wife.

"It was his father, I tell thee," said Mrs. Collister, and they let her have her way.

Still the church-bells rang, the fog-horn blew and Stowell stepped lightly through the dark streets of the little town. He passed the new Methodist chapel with the dark figure of the pew-opener against the coloured glass screen of the vestibule; the barracks, with the sentinel pacing outside and a number of red-coated soldiers in a bare room within, smoking and playing cards. The market-square was ablaze with light from the windows of the church (the same at which Bessie had kept Oie'l Verree) and the shadowy forms of the congregation were passing in at the porch.

At length he reached the quay with its smell of rock-salt and tar. The _Dan O'Connell_ was lying under the Castle gates, lazily getting up steam, and the Captain was smoking by the gangway.

"Everything right, Captain?"

"Everything, Sir."

"Will the fog interfere?"

"Not a ha'porth, yer Honour."

"What about the Harbour-master?"

"In church with the wife, but I'm to have supper with him after the sarvice and take a bottle of something."

"And the Turnkey?"

"Blind polatic at the 'Manx Arms,' Sir."

There came a dull hammering from the inside the Castle. Stowell shivered.

"Will they be gone in time?"

"Going back by the last train they're telling me."

"You'll whistle when you're clear away?"

"Shure!"

As Stowell crossed the foot-bridge at the back of the Church, he heard the congregation singing the opening hymn ("Nearer, my God, to Thee") and thought he knew the subject of the forthcoming sermon. The melancholy blowing of the fog-horn was coming through the blindness of the sea; the revolving light was blinking in and out on Langness.

A quarter of an hour later he was at Derby Haven. Most of the houses of the little port were dark, but the window of one of them gave out a faint light. Stowell tapped at it and Gell opened the door.

For two hours they sat together in the old maids' stuffy sitting-room, talking in whispers. Stowell gave Gell his last instructions.

"You remember that there are two gates to the Castle?"

"Yes."

"At eleven o'clock exactly, the moment the clock has ceased striking, you'll ring at the big gate, and then step round to the Deemster's."

"Yes!"

"Somebody will open the gate. It will be the jailer. If he calls you'll make no answer."

"Yes?"

"Yes?"

"As soon as he has closed the big gate the little one will be opened and Bessie will be brought out to you."

"Yes?"

"That's all. You know the rest."

After that there was a cold silence, quite unlike the warmth of yesterday. Each was thinking of the cruel thing which had come between them, and neither dared to talk about. At length Gell, taking something from his pocket, said,

"I owe you some money."

"No, you don't. Remember the terms I lent it on."

"Then take this anyway," said Gell, handing Stowell a sealed envelope.

After that there was another long silence, and then Gell said, in a thick voice,

"When we're far enough away I'll write."

"No, no!"

"Do you mean that I'm never to write to you?"

"Never."

"But I will .... I must...."

"Don't be a damned fool, man. Can't you see you never can?"

There was a pause.

"Victor," said Gell, "that's the first unkind word you have ever said to me."

"Alick," said Stowell, "it shall be the last."

The wash of the tide (it was near to the flood) on the stones of the shore, the monotonous blowing of the fog-horn and the deliberate ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece were the only sounds they heard except the irregular heave of their own breathing.

The two men were alternately watching the fingers of the clock and gazing down at the pattern of the carpet. At a few minutes to ten Stowell got up and said,

"I must go now."

"I'll walk down the road with you," said Gell.

They walked side by side in the mist until they came to the ruins of Hango Hill (where long before Alick had had his fight with the townsmen) and were breast to breast with King William's College.

"You had better go back now. We must not be seen together," said Stowell.

They stood for some moments without speaking. The clock in the school tower was striking ten. The school itself was in darkness. Another generation of boys were lying asleep in it now.

"I suppose we've got to say good-bye," said Gell.

Stowell made no reply, but he took Gell's hand and there was a long handclasp. Then they separated, Stowell going on towards the town, and Gell turning back to Derby Haven. Each had walked a few paces when Gell stopped and called,

"Vic!"

"What is it?"

There was a pause, and then, in a thick voice,

"Nothing! S'long!"

And so they parted.

There was loud laughter and a voice with a brogue from a house on the quay with the blind down but the top sash of the window partly open. The church was dark and the market-place silent, save for the measured tread of the sentry.

But as Stowell crossed the square he heard a light step and saw through the thick air the shadowy form of a woman coming from the direction of the Castle and going towards the hotel opposite.

He hung back until she had passed, and when the door of the hotel opened to her knocking, and the light from within rushed out on her, he saw who it was.

It was Fenella. Stowell understood. She had come from the cell of the condemned woman, and was sleeping in Castletown that night in order to be with her in the morning.

"But wait! Only wait!"

In spite of his certainty that Providence was on his side he stepped more lightly than ever as he went down to the quay.

The funnel of the Irish steamer was now throbbing hard, and a few sailors on the forward deck were swearing. Save for this and the wash of the tide against the sides of the harbour, all was still.

Stowell looked around and listened for a moment. Then he stepped up to the Deemster's door and pulled the bell, and heard its clang inside the walls.

II

"Ah, is it you, Dempster? You've come for Miss Stanley? She's just gone, Sir."

"I know. I saw her. Are you alone, Mr. Vondy?"

"Alone enough, Sir. It's shocking! The night before an execution too! That Willie Shimmin, the drunken gommeral, went off at four and isn't back yet. I wouldn't trust but I'll be here by myself until the High Bailiff and the Inspector and long Duggie Taggart come at six in the morning."

"How is your prisoner to-night, Mr. Vondy?"

"Wonderful quiet, Sir."

"Still expecting her pardon?"

"'Deed she is, poor bogh, and listening for Mr. Gell's feet to fetch it. Now she thinks he'll come in the morning. 'Something tells me he'll come at daybreak,' she said, and that's the for she's gone to sleep."

They had reached the guard-room, where a fire was burning, and an old oak armchair (once the seat of the Kings of Man) was drawn up in front of the hearth.

"Gone to sleep, has she? I must see her though. I have something to tell her."

"Is it the pardon itself, Sir? Has it come then?"

"Not yet, but a telegram may come from London at any moment."

"You don't say?"

"Give me your key, and sit here and make your supper" (a kettle was singing on the hob), "and if you hear the bell you will go off to the gate immediately."

"I will that, Sir."

At the end of a long corridor Stowell stopped at a cell that had a label on the door-post ("Elizabeth Corteen, Murder. Death") and looked in through the grill. In the dim light he saw the prisoner lying on her plank bed under her brown prison blanket. With a tremor of the heart he opened the door quietly and closed it behind him.

"Bessie!"

It had been hardly more than a whisper, but through the mists of sleep Bessie heard it. There was a cry, a bound, and then a rapturous voice saying in the half darkness,

"Ah, you are here already! I knew you would come."

But at the next moment, seeing who her visitor was, she stared at him with wide-open eyes, and then fell on him with reproaches.

"So it's you, is it? What have you come for? Is it only to tell me that I'm to die in the morning?"

Stowell stood with head down, feeling like a prisoner before his Judge. Then he said,

"You are not to die, Bessie."

She caught her breath and put up her hands to her breast.

"Do you mean that I am...."

"You are pardoned and have to leave this place immediately."

For a perceptible time Bessie stood silent, save for her breathing, which was loud and rapid.

"Is it true? Really true?"

"Quite true."

There is something childlike in sudden joy; Paradise itself must be a place of children. Bessie dropped back on her bed, clasped her hands together like a child, and said,

"I see it all now, and it has been just as I thought at first. You wrote a letter to the King and he has pardoned me. The law is hard but the King is so tender-hearted. 'Poor girl,' he thought, 'she didn't mean to kill her baby--not after it came, anyway.'"

Her eyes, which had been glistening, suddenly became grave, and lifting them to the ceiling, with her hands clasped before her face, she began to pray.

"Oh God, I've not been a good girl and I don't know how to pray right, but...." and then came a flood of words too sacred to be set down.

When she had finished her prayer she said,

"But you have been good too, and I have been insulting you! That's the way with a girl when she has been in trouble. You'll forgive me, won't you?"

Her face lit up and she went on talking, more to herself than to Stowell.

"Did you say I was to leave this place immediately? That means first thing to-morrow, doesn't it? I'll go to mother. She's staying with some Methodist people in Quay Lane. Poor mother, she won't be able to believe it. We'll go home by the first train."

Thinking of home she found a kind of proud revenge in triumphing over her enemies.

"Dan Baldromma will have to hold his tongue now. And those Skillicornes will never be allowed to show their ugly old faces again. And Cain the constable will have to find another beat, too, and those impudent girls who stared at me at Douglas station--they'll never have the face to sit in the singing-seat again."

But the smiling background of her thoughts was love.

"Alick will hear of it, won't he? I wrote to him but he didn't answer. Perhaps his sisters prevented him--they've always been casting me up to him. Poor Alick! He'll forgive me--I know he will. It was for Alick I did it. And just think! Next Sunday, perhaps, when people are walking about, we'll go downs Parliament Street together! And me on Alick's arm, and nobody to say a word against it, now that the King has forgiven me!"

Stowell hardly dared to look at the girl. For a long time he could not speak. But at length he compelled himself to tell her that she was not to go home. It was a condition of her pardon that she should leave the island.

"Leave the island?"

"Yes, there's a steamer in the harbour, and you are to sail by it to-night."

"To-night?"

"Yes, to Ireland, land from there, by another steamer, to New York."

"To New York?"

"Yes, but Alick is to go with you. I've just left him. We have arranged everything."

She looked searchingly into his agitated face and the radiance died off her own.

"But are you telling me the truth?" she said. "Am I really pardoned? You are not helping me to escape, are you?"

He pretended to laugh--It was hollow laughter.

"What an idea! A Deemster helping a prisoner to escape! Who would believe such a thing?"

"No! People wouldn't believe such a thing, would they?" she said, and her eyes again began to shine.

"At eleven o'clock the big bell will ring," said Stowell. "That will be Alick coming for you. You must give me your hand and I'll take you down to him."

"Oh, how happy we shall be!" she said. "We shall go far away, I suppose--where nobody will know what has happened here?"

"Yes, but you must make no noise on going out, and not call to anybody."

"But Mr. Vondy--he has been so good--I may stop and thank him?"

"He won't be there. I'll give him your message."

"But mother--if I'm going so far away I must say good-bye to her."

"No, I'm sorry, the steamer will sail immediately."

She looked again into his agitated face and then, raising her voice, she said,

"Mr. Stowell, you are deceiving me. I have not been pardoned. You _are_ helping me to escape."

"Hush!"

But (again in a loud voice) she cried,

"Don't lie to me any longer. Tell me the truth."

He hesitated for a moment, and then he told her. Yes, he was helping her to escape. He had tried to procure her pardon and failed, so he had determined to set her free.

While she listened to his tremulous voice she became a prey to a strange confusion. For days she had felt as if she hated this man, and now a mysterious feeling of warmth from the past came over her.

"But what about you?" she asked.

"I can take care of myself," he answered.

"But if anything becomes known after Alick and I have gone...."

"Nothing _will_ become known."

"But if anything does, and you get into trouble...."

"Bessie," said Stowell (he was breathing hard), "I did you a great wrong a year ago...."

"No, that was as much my fault as yours. I have been praying and praying for pardon, but rather than run away now and leave you to .... No, I won't go!"

There was a moment of uneasy silence and then Stowell said,

"Alick is waiting outside for you, Bessie. He is ready to give up everything in the world for your sake. Are you going to break his heart at the last moment?"

"But I can't! I can't! I .... I won't! And you shan't either. Mr. Vondy! Mr. Von--...."

"Be quiet! Be quiet!"

She had tried to reach the door, but he had thrown his arms about her and was covering her mouth to smother her cries. Ceasing to shout she began to moan, and then he tried to coax her.

"Come, girl! Trust me! I know what I'm doing. Pull yourself together. Stand up! It's nearly eleven o'clock. You'll have to walk to the gate presently. Come now, be brave."

But her eyes had closed, and by the dim light from the grill he saw that she was insensible.

"Bessie! Bessie!" he whispered, but she was lying helpless in his arms.

For a moment he was bewildered. Of all the chances that might prevent success this was the only one he had not counted with. But at the next instant his mind, which was working with lightning-like rapidity, saw a new opportunity.

"Better so," he thought, and laying the unconscious woman on her bed he hurried back to the jailer.

III

"Mr. Vondy! Mr. Vondy! Your prisoner is ill."

The jailer, who had fallen asleep after his supper, staggered to his feet.

"God bless my soul! And the doctor living at the other end of the town too."

"Never mind the doctor! Brandy! Quick!"

"There isn't a drop in the Castle, Sir."

"Yes, there's a flask in my room. Take these" (giving him a bunch of keys) "and go for it."

"Where will I find it, Sir?"

"I don't know. I can't remember. Look everywhere--in every drawer, every cupboard."

"I will, your Honour."

"Don't come back without it."

"I won't, Sir." And still in the mists of sleep the jailer picked up his lantern from the table and staggered off.

Stowell listened to the sounds of the old man's retreating footsteps until they had died away.

"This will give more time," he thought--he had sent the jailer on a fruitless errand.

It was then five minutes to eleven. Returning to the cell he lifted Bessie in his arms and carried her out of the prison. At first he was no more conscious of her weight than he had been of the weight of the sheep on the mountains.

But outside it was very dark, and at every uncertain step his burden became heavier. In the open space between the main building and the outer walls the fog lay thick as in a well, and it was as much as he could do to see one foot before him.

Over the wooden drawbridge his feet fell with a thudding sound, but he groped for the grass at the bottom of the stone steps, so that he should not be heard on the gravel path.

There was no sound in the court-yard except that of the fierce belching from the funnel of the steamer, the wash of the tide in the harbour, the boom of the sea in the bay and the monotonous blowing of the fog-horn.

He was making for the Deemster's private entrance and had no light to guide him except the borrowed gleam from the door to the Deemster's rooms, which the jailer in his haste had left open. As he passed this door he heard the sound of the rapid opening and closing of drawers. The weight of the woman in his arms was becoming unbearable.

At one moment he saw the shadowy outlines of a white thing which the carpenters had erected against the walls. He shuddered and went on.

The damp air was chill and Bessie began to revive under it. At first she breathed heavily, and then she made those low, inarticulate moans of returning consciousness which are the most unearthly sounds that come from human lips.

"Mr. Von--.... Mr. Von--...."

Both arms being engaged, Stowell had to crush the girl's mouth against his breast to stop her cries. They ceased and she swooned again.

His burden was becoming monstrous. With a savage strength of will and muscle he struggled along. At length he reached the Deemster's door. It was fastened as he knew, not only by the lock of which the key was in his waistcoat pocket, but also by three long bolts. With the unconscious girl in his arms it was as much as he could do to open it. At last he did so. A pale face was outside. It was Gell's.

"Take her--she has fainted." Not another word was spoken.

Gell, breathing rapidly, took Bessie into his arms, and carried her across the quay. Stowell watched him until he reached the gangway, and then the sea mist hid him. He heard Gell walking on the deck and then going, with heavy footsteps, down the cabin companion.

He closed the Deemster's door, locked and bolted it, and then turned back to the prison. Again he kept to the grass and was conscious of an effort to make his footsteps light.

On reaching the drawbridge he looked back and listened. The opening and closing of drawers was still audible. The funnel of the steamer was still belching invisible smoke, and red sparks from the fires below were shooting through it. The tide was still washing in the harbour, the sea was still booming in the bay, and the fog-horn was still blowing on Langness. Save for these sights and sounds, everything was dark and silent within the great blind walls.

Then the clock in the tower struck eleven. Every stroke fell on the clammy air like a blow from a padded hammer.

IV

Five minutes passed.

Stowell had returned to the cell, stretched out the brown prison blankets so as to give the appearance, in the dim light, of a body on the bed, and was now sitting in the armchair before the fire in the guard-room. His work was not yet done, and he was listening to the sounds outside. Until the steamer sailed he must remain in the Castle to keep watch on the jailer. He was more sure than ever that he was doing God's work, but he was still behaving like a criminal.

Footsteps approached. The jailer entered, mopping his forehead.

"I can't find it, your Honour, and I've searched everywhere."

"Never mind, Mr. Vondy. Your prisoner recovered from her attack and is now sleeping peacefully."

"Sleeping, is she? I'll take a look at her."

"Don't! I mean don't go into the cell and disturb her."

"I won't, Sir," said the jailer, from half-way down the corridor.

Stowell listened intently. Presently the jailer returned.

"Aw, yes, she's fast enough! Wonderful the way they sleep on the last night. Something you told her, perhaps. Has the telegram come, your Honour?"

"No, and it won't come now. Eleven o'clock, they said. If it didn't come then I was not to expect it."

"Poor bogh! It will be a shocking thing when Duggie Taggart comes in the morning. I wouldn't trust but it will be a dead woman itself we'll be taking out of the cell, Sir."

"I wouldn't trust," said Stowell.

Insensibly he had dropped into the Anglo-Manx. He was trying to find some excuse for remaining.

"It'll be a middlin' cold drive home, old friend--couldn't you make me a cup of coffee?"

"With pleasure, Sir," said the jailer. And while the old man stirred the peats and hung the kettle on the slowrie, Stowell, listening at the same time to the voices without (the husky brogue of the Irish Captain and the guttural croaking of the half-tipsy harbour-master) got him to tell the story of his appointment.

"It was thirty years ago, when I was coachman at Ballamoar in the 'Stranger's' days--a wonderful kind woman your mother was, Sir."

"Hurry up, boys. Bear a hand with that crank"--the swing-bridge was being opened; the steamer was to go out in spite of the fog.

"I used to be taking her for drives in the morning, and it was always 'Thank you, Mr. Vondy! A beautiful drive, Mr. Vondy!' Aw, gentry, Sir, gentry born!"

"Damn your eyes, let go that forrard rope"--the Captain was on the bridge.

"We had a young Irish mare in them days, Sir, and coming home one morning in harvest, not more than a month before your Honour was born, Illiam Christian (he was always a toot was Illiam) started his new reaper in the road field just as we were passing the Nappin, and the mare bolted."

"Why the divil don't you take in the slack of that starn rope? Do you want me to come down and dump you overboard?"--the funnels had ceased to roar and the paddles were plashing.

"I was a middling strong young fellow then, Mr. Stowell, Sir, and if the mare pulled I pulled too, until one of the reins broke at me and I was flung off the box."

"Aisy does it! Take in that breast rope, bys"--the steamer was passing through the gate.

"I wasn't for letting go for all. Not me! Just holding on like mad, though it was tossing and tumbling on the road I was like a mollag in a dirty sea."

"Half-steam below there"--the steamer was opening the bay.

"I bet her at last, Sir, and up she came at the Ballamoar gates blowing like a smithy bellows and sweating tremenjous, but quiet as a lamb."

"Heave oh and away!"

"I was ragged and torn like a scarecrow, and herself was as white as a sea-gull, but never a scratch, thank God!"

"Bravo!"

"The Dempster had heard the yelling on the road and down the drive he came in his dressing-gown and slippers, trembling like a ghost. And when he saw it was all right with herself, 'Mr. Vondy,' says he, with the water in his eyes, 'I'll never forget it, Mr. Vondy,' he says."

"And he didn't?"

"'Deed no! Aw, a grand man, the ould Dempster, Sir. Middlin' stiff in the upper lip, but a man of his word for all. And when Capt'n Crow pegged out and this place was vacant he put me in for it."

Straining his powers of listening Stowell was still waiting for the whistle that was to tell him the steamer was clear away.

"Crow? That was Nelson's Crow, wasn't it?"

"Nelson's Crow it was, Sir. One-eyed Crow we were calling him. He was boatswain on the _Victory_, and when the big man went down he was in the cockpit holding him in his arms. 'Will I die, Mr. Crow?' said Nelson. 'We had better wait for the opinion of the ship's doctor, Sir,' said Crow."

There was a long shrill whistle from a distance. Stowell leapt to his feet and laughed--the steamer had gone.

"Ah, a rael Manxman, wasn't he? Wouldn't commit himself, you see."

Then he slapped the jailer on the shoulder and said,

"So you've been here thirty years, old friend?"

"About that, Sir," said the jailer.

"But do you know you wouldn't be here thirty hours longer if I were to tell the Governor what you've done to-night?"

"Why, what's that, your Honour?"

"Left a condemned prisoner without guard, or even without remembering to lock her up and carry away the keys"--and he threw the keys of the cell on the table.

"God bless me, yes! I never thought of that. But it was yourself that sent me out, and your Honour will not tell."

"Not I, old friend. But listen! Nobody in the island knows that I've been trying to get your prisoner's pardon, and now that it hasn't come, it's better that nobody should know. So you'll say nothing to anybody about my being here to-night?"

"Not a word, Sir. But you've done your best for the poor bogh, and it's Himself will reward you."

It was not until Stowell was outside the Castle that he reflected that whatever else happened in the morning the jailer must certainly fall into disgrace.

"I must find a way to make it up to him," he thought.

V

The quay was deserted and the berth of the tramp steamer in the harbour was an empty space, but in the fever of his impatience Stowell walked to the end of the pier to make sure that the ship had gone.

The fog had lifted a little by this time, the fog-horn was no longer blowing, and against the dark sea he could just make out the darker hull of the steamer leaving the bay. Farther away he saw the revolving light from Langness, which was shooting red vapour into the sky like breath from fiery nostrils. The night air was still cold, but his forehead was perspiring.

Bessie would be recovering consciousness by this time. "Where am I?" she would be saying. And then she would hear the throb of the engines and the wash of the water, and see Alick by her side.

For a moment he lost sight of the ship's stern light (a mist was sweeping over the surface of the sea) and his anxiety became agony, but it reappeared at the other side of the light-house and his spirits rose again. Yes, she was steering north.

"Sail on! Sail on! Sail on!"

He returned to the town. In the thinning fog everything looked immensely large and frightening. He walked slowly in order not to attract attention. Passing through the narrow streets he found nearly all the houses dark. Only two or three of the upper windows showed light, and from one of them, partly open, he heard the cry of a sick child.

But in a winding lane, close under the Castle, he came upon a cottage that was lit up in the lower storey, and loud with many voices. He recognised it as the house at which he had left Mrs. Collister, and understood what was happening. The old woman's Primitive friends were holding a prayer-meeting by her bedside in the kitchen to comfort her. A man was praying and many women were shouting responses.

"Save the sinner, O Lord!" (_Hallelujah!_) "She may be inside prison walls to-night, but show her the Golden Gates are always open." (_Hallelujah!_) "Remember Thy servant, her mother!" (_Aw yes, remember her!_) "Her soul is passing through deep waters." (_'Deed it is, Lord!_) "Stretch out Thy hand as Thou didst to Peter of old and suffer her not to sink."

Outside the town Stowell had an impulse to run. He found his motor-car where he had left it and pushed it into the road. While lighting his lamp he thought he heard sounds from the direction of the Castle. Had the escape become known? He listened for anything that might denote alarm. There was nothing.

The Castle clock struck twelve. The fog had nearly gone now, and looking back he saw the gloomy and forbidding fortress towering over the sleeping town. A few stars had appeared above it.

All was quiet. The condemned woman had escaped from Castle Rushen. There was nothing to show that he himself had been there.

With a last look back he started his engine and released his levers, and his car shot away.