Count Hannibal

"You may throw the handle after the hatchet!" he muttered. "The man on

guard is within four yards of the door." And in the rage of

disappointment he struck the air with his hand.

"Is he looking this way?"

"No. He is looking down the passage towards our room. But it is

impossible to pass him."

La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the lattices which lighted

the room. It might be possible to escape that way, by the parapet and

the tiles. But he found that the casement was set high in the roof,

which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves. He passed to the other

window, in which a little wicket in the lattice stood open. He looked

through it. In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in the

dazzling sunshine, and, gazing down, he saw far below him, in the hot

square, a row of booths, and troops of people moving to and fro like

pigmies; and--and a strange thing, in the middle of all! Involuntarily,

as if the persons below could have seen his face at the tiny dormer, he

drew back.

He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him; and when the young man

complied, he bade him in a whisper look down. "See!" he muttered.

"There!"

The younger man saw and drew in his breath. Even under the coating of

dust his face turned a shade greyer.

"You had no need to fear that he would let us go!" the minister muttered,

with half-conscious irony.

"No."

"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe breathed a few words of

prayer. The object which had fixed his gaze was a gibbet: the only one

of the three which could be seen from their eyrie.

Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply away, and with haggard

eyes stared about the room. "We might defend the staircase," he

muttered. "Two men might hold it for a time."

"We have no food."

"No." Suddenly he gripped La Tribe's arm. "I have it!" he cried. "And

it may do! It must do!" he continued, his face working. "See!" And

lifting from the floor one of the ragged pallets, from which the straw

protruded in a dozen places, he set it flat on his head.

It drooped at each corner--it had seen much wear--and, while it almost

hid his face, it revealed his grimy chin and mortar-stained shoulders. He

turned to his companion.

La Tribe's face glowed as he looked. "It may do!" he cried. "It's a

chance! But you are right! It may do!"

Tignonville dropped the ragged mattress, and tore off his coat; then he

rent his breeches at the knee, so that they hung loose about his calves.

"Do you the same!" he cried. "And quick, man, quick! Leave your boots!

Once outside we must pass through the streets under these"--he took up

his burden again and set it on his head--"until we reach a quiet part,

and there we--"