All this time I spoke never a word, but watched the doorway across which Jan, as by a potent loadstone, was being slowly drawn. Trude simpered and smirked, answered his clumsy compliments with broad blushes, turned away her head when he beamed most tenderly; in short no trout on the hook was ever played more skilfully than the unwary Jan. His great bulk disappeared from the doorway. I could hear his feet going haltingly down the hall towards a convenient window, where his back would be toward the door, and he could lean delightfully out the casement with a very pretty face near to his. Andrea, whose red hair dye I was admiring vastly, and who looked a veritable Norman, continued assiduously at his work and whispering, sometimes straightening the offending clock-hand with resounding blows, until I saw his whole form squirm like a cat’s. Jan was at the window. “Now!” He turned like lightning. I stretched my feet, holding the chain taut on the hard oak floor. A hatchet of notable edge and temper flashed once, then descended. A blow worthy of a mastersmith! The chain at my ankles sprang into two glittering fragments. Bounding to his feet Andrea caught the ends of the chains and thrust them in a twinkling into my shoes, then seized me by the shoulder and without saying a word half led half carried me across the narrow passage. Three long strides did it. By some occult power the door opposite flew open. I saw a figure in black standing behind it. Into the strange room,--and all I could see for an instant was a white, white face shining out from under the black coif. “Ilsa!” “Walter!” Andrea was bolting the door, while we sprang into one another’s arms. Oh, that moment, that moment! Gladly would I have paid for it with a captivity not of days, but of years! Yet the period of our joy was one of a fleeting minute. Andrea was far too devoted a rescuer to let his fair project fail through overmuch lover’s ardor. “Away! away! Eccellenza! Release him, Donna! Instants are precious. Jan may discover at any time. The Conte must have his wrists free in order to clamber down the vine trellis. There is much to do.” He clapped his hand to his belt, then actually turned pale, “Diavolo!” “What has happened?” cried Ilsa, first to win back her tongue. “Call me the prince of fools!” raged Andrea. “I have left the pincers wherewith to clear the Conte’s hands in the other room.” “Cannot I get down without them?” I demanded; but a glance from the window at a gnarled mass of vines that descended a sheer twenty feet convinced me that while an active man could do the deed easily, it were madness to try it manacled. “I will lose no time,” proclaimed Andrea, unbolting again. “I go and return in a trice; Trude can detain Jan a thousand years.”