Clementina

He took off his heavy boots and flung them one by one over the wall.

Then he pulled off his coat at the cost of some pain and an added

weakness, for the coat was stuck to his wounds and had roughly staunched

them. He could feel the blood again soaking his shirt. There was all the

more need, then, for hurry. He stood up, jammed his back into the angle

of the wall, stretched out his arms on each side, pressing with his

elbows and hands, and then bending his knees crossed his legs tailor

fashion, and set the soles of his stockinged feet firmly against the

bricks on each side. He was thus seated as it were upon nothing, but

retaining his position by the pressure of his arms and feet and his

whole body. Still retaining this position, very slowly, very

laboriously, he worked himself up the angle, stopping now and then to

regain his breath, now and then slipping back an inch. But he mounted

towards the top, and after a while the back of his head no longer

touched the bricks. His head was above the coping of the wall.

It was at this moment that he saw the lantern again, just at the corner

where he had turned. The lantern advanced slowly; it was now held aloft,

now close to the ground. Wogan was very glad he had thrown his boots

and coat into the garden. He made a few last desperate struggles; he

could now place the palms of his hands behind him upon the coping, and

he hoisted himself up and sat on the wall.

The lantern was nearer to him; he lay flat upon his face on the coping,

and then lowering himself upon the garden side to the full length of his

arms, he let go. He fell into a litter of dead leaves, very soft and

comfortable. He would not have exchanged them at that moment for the

Emperor's own bed. He lay upon his back and saw the dark branches above

his head grow bright and green. His pursuers were flashing their lantern

on the other side; there was only the thickness of the wall between him

and them. He could even hear them whispering and the brushing of their

feet. He lay still as a mouse; and then the earth heaved up and fell

away altogether beneath him. Wogan had fainted.