"Only Willie Shimmin, the turnkey, and he's a drunken gommeral, always wanting out, and never sure of coming back at all." "What about your female warder?" "Mrs. Mylrea? A dying woman, Sir. Not been here since the trial, and if it wasn't for Miss Stanley...." "Does she come often?" "Nearly every day now, Sir." At that moment there was the clang of a bell. "There she is, I'll go bail," said the jailer, and snatching a big key from the keyboard he turned to go. In the collapse of his better nature Stowell was afraid to meet Fenella, knowing well she would see through him. "Don't trouble about me, or mention that I'm here," he said, and picking up his lantern he made a show of going on with his researches. But as soon as the jailer had disappeared he turned rapidly to the Deemster's door and had opened it and stepped out and closed it behind him, before the jailer and Fenella (whose voices he could hear) had emerged from the Portcullis into the court-yard. It was done! Light had fallen on him at last. Now he knew how Bessie Collister was to escape from Castle Rushen. But it was not enough that Bessie should escape from her prison; she must escape from the island also; and to do so by means of the regular steam packet from Douglas to England was impossible. Was this to be another and still greater difficulty? The tide was up in the harbour and the fishing-boats were making ready to go out for the night. As Stowell walked down the quay he saw a blue-coated and brass-buttoned elderly man coming up with unsteady steps--the harbour-master. A sudden thought came to him. Why not by a fishing-boat? He remembered his night with the herrings on the Governor's yacht, when, lying off the Carlingford sands, he had seen the lights of Dublin. Why could not a fishing-boat steal away in the darkness and put Bessie ashore in Ireland? It was the very thing! Only it must not be a Castletown boat, lest she should be missed when the fleet came back to port in the morning. Why not a Ramsey boat, or, better still, a boat from Peel? After dinner that night he walked on the gravelled terrace in front of the house. The moon was shining in a pale sky and the bald crown of old Snaefell was visible through the motionless trees. He drew up on the spot on which he had first parted from Fenella, and a warm vision of the scene of so many years ago returned to him. Then came the memory of their last parting and of the scorching words with which she had driven him away from her. "But wait! Only wait!" he thought. He was satisfied with himself. He was sure he was doing right. He even believed God was using him as an instrument of His divine justice, to correct the infamy of the world by a signal action. It was one of those lulls between the wings of a circling storm which come to the soul of man as well as to nature. He was almost happy. III