"'Do you know that he has slept in the upper room of the donjon ever since it was restored?' And with the same gesture he pointed to the half-open door, the ladder, the terrace, and the windows in the
(I say, if, because at this moment, apart from the presence of the ladder and his vacant room, there are no evidences which permit me even to suspect him)--if he is there, he has been obliged to pass by the ladder, and the rooms which lie behind his, in his new lodging, are occupied by the family of the steward and by the cook, and by the kitchens, which bar the way by the vestibule to the interior of the chateau.
Boxtel put a lighted dark lantern into his pocket, mounted the
ladder, and slipped into the dry-room.
It was reached only by a
ladder, and it seemed to be as bare as the bare walls.
"I am looking for the person who let down the
ladder. I see no one and yet the
ladder didn't come down of itself."
The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs, his other hand seized the
ladder.
Felton mounted the
ladder first, and gave his hand to Milady, while the sailors supported her, for the sea was still much agitated.
The mass swung clear of the
ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe.
We heard the
ladder creak again under a ponderous and slow descent; and we stood upright in the dim flicker of a candle-end that I had lit and left burning on the floor.
As he descended thus slowly, the
ladder seemed interminable and the pit bottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the bottom that he could not have descended more than fifty feet.
The
ladder dropped close to him, and at the instant he grasped it the doctor again shouted to Kennedy:
'I beg your pardon, Sir?' returned Kit, looking down from the
ladder.