Count Hannibal

"If we could get out of his power as we came into it!" Tignonville cried.

"Ay, if! But it is not every floor has a trap!"

"We could take up a board."

The minister raised his eyebrows.

"We could take up a board!" the younger man repeated; and he stepped the

mean chamber from end to end, his eyes on the floor. "Or--yes, mon

Dieu!" with a change of attitude, "we might break through the roof?"

And, throwing back his head, he scanned the cobwebbed surface of laths

which rested on the unceiled joists.

"Umph!"

"Well, why not, Monsieur? Why not break through the ceiling?"

Tignonville repeated, and in a fit of energy he seized his companion's

shoulder and shook him. "Stand on the bed, and you can reach it."

"And the floor which rests on it!"

"Par Dieu, there is no floor! 'Tis a cockloft above us! See there!

And there!" And the young man sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel of

a spur through the laths. La Tribe's expression changed. He rose slowly

to his feet.

"Try again!" he said.

Tignonville, his face red, drove the spur again between the laths, and

worked it to and fro until he could pass his fingers into the hole he had

made. Then he gripped and bent down a length of one of the laths, and,

passing his arm as far as the elbow through the hole, moved it this way

and that. His eyes, as he looked down at his companion through the

falling rubbish, gleamed with triumph.

"Where is your floor now?" he asked.

"You can touch nothing?"

"Nothing. It's open. A little more and I might touch the tiles." And

he strove to reach higher.

For answer La Tribe gripped him. "Down! Down, Monsieur," he muttered.

"They are bringing our dinner."

Tignonville thrust back the lath as well as he could, and slipped to the

floor; and hastily the two swept the rubbish from the bed. When Badelon,

attended by two men, came in with the meal he found La Tribe at the

window blocking much of the light, and Tignonville laid sullenly on the

bed. Even a suspicious eye must have failed to detect what had been

done; the three who looked in suspected nothing and saw nothing. They

went out, the key was turned again on the prisoners, and the footsteps of

two of the men were heard descending the stairs.

"We have an hour, now!" Tignonville cried; and leaping, with flaming

eyes, on the bed, he fell to hacking and jabbing and tearing at the laths

amid a rain of dust and rubbish. Fortunately the stuff, falling on the

bed, made little noise; and in five minutes, working half-choked and in a

frenzy of impatience, he had made a hole through which he could thrust

his arms, a hole which extended almost from one joist to its neighbour.

By this time the air was thick with floating lime; the two could scarcely

breathe, yet they dared not pause. Mounting on La Tribe's shoulders--who

took his stand on the bed--the young man thrust his head and arms through

the hole, and, resting his elbows on the joists, dragged himself up, and

with a final effort of strength landed nose and knees on the timbers,

which formed his supports. A moment to take breath, and press his torn

and bleeding fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a hand to

his companion and dragged him to the same place of vantage.