The night was overcast, and the moon hidden behind thick clouds.  Still, there was light enough to enable him to discern the perilous position in which he stood.  After gazing below for some time, Leonard was about to return to the cell, when, casting his eyes upwards, he thought he perceived the end of a rope about a foot above his head, dangling from the upper part of the structure.  No sooner was this discovery made, than it occurred to him that he might possibly liberate himself by this unlooked for aid; and, regardless of the risk he ran, he sprang upwards and caught hold of the rope.  It was firmly fastened above, and sustained his weight well.

Possessed of great bodily strength and activity, and nerved by desperation, Leonard Holt placed his feet against the buttress, and impelled himself towards one of the tall pointed windows lighting the interior of the tower; but though he reached the point at which he aimed, the sway of the rope dragged him back before he could obtain a secure grasp of the stone shaft; and, after another ineffectual effort, fearful of exhausting his strength, he abandoned the attempt, and began to climb up the rope with his hands and knees.  Aided by the inequalities of the roughened walls, he soon gained a range of small Saxon arches ornamenting the tower immediately beneath the belfry, and succeeded in planting his right foot on the moulding of one of them; he instantly steadied himself, and with little further effort clambered through an open window.

His first act on reaching the belfry was to drop on his knees, and return thanks to Heaven for his deliverance.  He then looked about for an outlet; but though a winding staircase existed in each of the four angles of the tower, all the doors, to his infinite disappointment, were fastened on the other side.  He was still, therefore, a prisoner.

Determined, however, not to yield to despair, he continued his search, and finding a small door opening upon a staircase communicating with the summit of the tower, he unfastened it (for the bolt was on his own side), and hurried up the steps.  Passing through another door bolted like the first within side, he issued upon the roof.  He was now on the highest part of the cathedral, and farther from his hopes than ever; and so agonizing were his feelings, that he almost felt tempted to fling himself headlong downwards.  Beneath him lay the body of the mighty fabric, its vast roof, its crocketed pinnacles, its buttresses and battlements scarcely discernible through the gloom, but looking like some monstrous engine devised to torture him.

Wearied with gazing at it, and convinced of the futility of any further attempt at descent, Leonard Holt returned to the belfry, and, throwing himself on the boarded floor, sought some repose.  The fatigue he had undergone was so great, that, notwithstanding his anxiety, he soon dropped asleep, and did not awake for several hours.  On opening his eyes, it was just getting light, and shaking himself, he again prepared for action.  All the events of the night rushed upon his mind, and he thought with unutterable anguish of Amabel’s situation.  Glancing round the room, it occurred to him that he might give the alarm by ringing the enormous bells near him; but though he set them slightly in motion, he could not agitate the immense clappers sufficiently to produce any sound.