If not, you must jump. There will be a boat ready to take you
away.'
"It all turned out well. It was a pitch dark night, raining and
blowing, and the sentries kept inside their boxes. I got up to the top
of the wall all right, and was able to fasten the rope on to the
spikes and slide down on the other side. The woman was there with a
man, whom she told me was her brother. They took me to a creek two
miles away and there put me on board a boat, and I was rowed out to a
smuggling craft which at once set sail, and two days later was landed
at Cherbourg. So that's how I came to learn English."
"Did you ever hear whether the woman who helped you was suspected?"
"I saw her brother two months afterward on one of the trips that the
craft he belonged to made. He said that of course there were a great
many inquiries made, and his sister had been questioned closely. She
swore that she had hardly spoken to me for the last two months and
that she had given me nothing; which in a way was true enough, for she
had not handed them to me herself. The prisoners bore her out about
her not coming near me, for it had been noticed that she was not as
friendly as she had been. Some had thought her ungrateful, while
others had fancied that she was angry at my interfering and making a
tumult about the child. Anyhow, whatever suspicions they might have
had they could prove nothing.
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