The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the next astride it safely. "Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he comes closer." He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon, trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There was plenty of time to prevent that, however. Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the parapet cautiously. "From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember. You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent! Vincent!" "What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be seen. "Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I believe she is right." "Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!" Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover deliberately, with an odd look on his face. "Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always knew he was a nailing gymnast." There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down, please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear; we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside." "But I would rather look--I'd rather see _anything_ happen--" she moaned; "it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly. George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.