"I thought, if worst came to worst, I might find a ladder outside," he
said, fearful of betraying his illicit happiness.

"Billy can find a ladder, if there is one," Angela persisted. "There's the
most weird, rustling sound, which comes every once in a while, and I can't
possibly stand it with only Billy."

Nick could hardly speak for joy, but he managed to reply, "All right;
Billy shall be the man to go."

The going was easier to propose than to carry out: for in bygone days,
when the Padres of Old Spain were building New Spain, Mission churches
had to protect their flocks against the devil incarnate as well as
excarnate. Windows were made few and high; and now, when the brave
builders sleep, it is nobody's business to worry about the free passage of
air. Such windows as San Miguel possesses were hermetically closed that
night when Angela di Sereno and Nick Hilliard were imprisoned; and Billy,
standing on Nick's shoulders, had to work a few tedious moments before he
could induce one of these windows to open. By the time the wiry, slim
figure was ready to straddle the window-sill, slip out, dangling, and drop
on the grass, night had closed in, fragrant and purple in the open, heavy
and black in the church.

Angela came and stood close to Nick. She had never been a timid girl; but
since the night when she had lain watching a thief who slowly, slowly
raised her window, twelve storeys above the ground, foolish and hitherto
unknown terrors crept through her veins if she happened to wake in the
dark. And now there certainly was a rustling which stirred the silence,
then died, as if it had never been.