Without the least trouble we found the gates or doors in the wall, and truly enough, they were of “thick oak” so strong that we could not feel them vibrate when we tried to shake them, and so firmly locked in the middle that we almost despaired of opening them.  The wall was too high to scale, and for a moment it looked as though our journey had been in vain.  But Betty’s keen wits came to our rescue.

When George and I had examined the gates and had almost despaired of opening them, Betty undertook an inspection of her own, and presently called our attention to a hole, perhaps four inches in diameter, in each gate, which was hidden by round curtains of wood hung within, so completely closing up the holes as to make them invisible save on close examination.  She suggested that we pass the trace chain through one hole, draw it out through the other, hitch the horses to the two ends, and pull down the wall if the gates refused to give way.

Her plan was so good that the horses soon opened the gate, though it required a strong pull from all four of them to do it.  Betty and I were the first to enter, George following close at our heels.  The two drivers, who had taken the horses back to the coach, hitched them to a tree and soon followed us, bringing the long leather reins to be used as climbing ropes if necessary.

Hardly had we entered the gate till we saw a starlike gleam of light in a window of a room in the third story of the tower, as Lilly had predicted.  While I was convinced that the light came through a hole in the curtain rather than from a star held by Raphael to guide us, still my scepticism was rapidly turning to awe.

We were speaking of the light when two great dogs came bounding out of the darkness and attacked us.  I drew my sword, a sharp, heavy blade, and being much frightened, began to swing it heroically in every direction.  Fortunately one of the dogs happened to be in one of the directions, and I split its head.  The other dog attacked Betty, but George ran to her rescue and finished the animal before it had time to bark.

Having vanquished the dogs, we hastened to the tower and stopped beneath the window of the star.  We had hoped to attract Frances’s attention by casting pebbles against the window-pane, but we had counted without our ammunition.  We could find no pebbles, the snow being at least a foot deep.

A thick vine, probably an ivy, covered the front of the tower, and George attempted to make the escalade by climbing.  He would have denuded the wall had he continued his efforts, for the vine broke, not being strong enough to bear his weight.

“Let me try it,” whispered Betty, taking off her greatcoat, hood, gloves, and boots and tossing them to the ground.

I objected to her risking her pretty neck and limbs, but she insisted that she could make the ascent easily, and George agreeing with her, I reluctantly consented.