The sun was just going down behind the trees as Clotelle entered the prison to see Jerome for the last time. He was to die on the next day. Her face was bent upon her hands, and the gushing tears were forcing their way through her fingers. With beating heart and trembling hands, evincing the deepest emotion, she threw her arms around her lover's neck and embraced him. But, prompted by her heart's unchanging love, she had in her own mind a plan by which she hoped to effect the escape of him to whom she had pledged her heart and hand. While the overcharged clouds which had hung over the city during the day broke, and the rain fell in torrents, amid the most terrific thunder and lightning, Clotelle revealed to Jerome her plan for his escape.
"Dress yourself in my clothes," said she, "and you can easily pass the jailer."
This Jerome at first declined doing. He did not wish to place a confiding girl in a position where, in all probability, she would have to suffer; but being assured by the young girl that her life would not be in danger, he resolved to make the attempt. Clotelle being very tall, it was not probable that the jailer would discover any difference in them.
At this moment, she took from her pocket a bunch of keys and unfastened the padlock, and freed him from the floor.
"Come, girl, it is time for you to go," said the jailer, as Jerome was holding the almost fainting girl by the hand.
Being already attired in Clotelle's clothes, the disguised man embraced the weeping girl, put his handkerchief to his face, and passed out of the jail, without the keeper's knowing that his prisoner was escaping in a disguise and under cover of the night.
CHAPTER XX.
THE HERO OF MANY ADVENTURES.
Jerome had scarcely passed the prison-gates, ere he reproached himself for having taken such a step. There seemed to him no hope of escape out of the State, and what was a few hours or days at most, of life to him, when, by obtaining it, another had been sacrificed. He was on the eve of returning, when he thought of the last words uttered by Clotelle. "Be brave and determined, and you will still be free." The words sounded like a charm in his ears and he went boldly forward.
Clotelle had provided a suit of men's clothes and had placed them where her lover could get them, if he should succeed in getting out.
Returning to Mr. Wilson's barn, the fugitive changed his apparel, and again retraced his steps into the street. To reach the Free States by
