Chiquita bent down her head, put her hand over her eyes, and remained for several minutes perfectly motionless; then she raised her head and without a word went and opened the window, clambered up on the sill, and gazed out intently into the darkness.

“Is she really going to take flight?” said Isabelle to herself, as she anxiously watched Chiquita’s movements, not knowing what to expect.  Exactly opposite to the window, on the other side of the moat, was an immense tree, very high and old, whose great branches, spreading out horizontally, overhung the water; but the longest of them did not reach the wall of the chateau by at least ten feet.  It was upon this tree, however, that Chiquita’s plan for escape depended.  She turned away from the window, drew from her pocket a long cord made of horse-hair, very fine and strong, which she carefully unrolled to its full length and laid upon the floor; then produced from another pocket an iron hook, which she fastened securely to the cord.  This done to her satisfaction, she went to the window again, and threw the end of the cord with the hook into the branches of the tree.  The first time she was unsuccessful; the iron hook fell and struck against the stone wall beneath the casement; but at the second attempt the hook caught and held, and Chiquita, drawing the cord taut, asked Isabelle to take hold of it and bear her whole weight on it, until the branch was bent as far as possible towards the chateau—­coming five or six feet nearer to the window where they were.  Then Chiquita tied the cord firmly to the ornamental iron railing of the tiny balcony, with a knot that could not slip, climbed over, and grasping the cord with both hands, swung herself off, and hung suspended over the waters of the moat far below.  Isabelle held her breath.  With a rapid motion of the hands Chiquita crossed the clear space, reached the tree safely, and climbed down into it with the agility of a monkey.

“Now undo the knot so that I can take the cord with me,” she said, in a low but very distinct tone of voice to Isabelle, who began to breathe freely again, “unless, indeed, you would like to follow me.  But you would be frightened and dizzy, and might fall, so you had better stay where you are.  Good-bye!  I am going straight to Paris, and shall soon be back again; I can get on quickly in this bright moonlight.”

Isabelle did as she was bid, and the branch, being no longer held by the cord, swung back to its original position.  In less than a minute Chiquita had scrambled down to the ground, and the captive soon lost sight of her slender little figure as she walked off briskly towards the capital.