"Well," said Gaston, "you were right."
"Yes; but I am exactly like the man who went round Jerusalem crying out 'Woe!' for seven days, and the eighth day a stone thrown from the walls struck him and killed him."
"Yes, I know that we are to die together."
"Which annoys you a little; does it not?"
"Very much, for I had reason to cling to life."
"Every one has."
"But I above all."
"Then I only know one way."
"Make revelations! never."
"No, but fly with me."
"How! fly with you?"
"Yes, I escape."
"But do you know that our execution is fixed for to-morrow?"
"Therefore I decamp to-night."
"Escape, do you say?"
"Certainly."
"How? where?"
"Open the window."
"Well."
"Shake the middle bar."
"Great God!"
"Does it resist?"
"No, it yields!"
"Very good, it has given me trouble enough, Heaven knows."
"It seems like a dream."
"Do you remember asking me if I did not make holes in anything, like all the others?"
"Yes, but you replied – "
"That I would tell you another time; was the answer a good one?"
"Excellent; but how to descend?"
"Help me."
"In what?"
"To search my paillasse."
"A ladder of cord!"
"Exactly."
"But how did you get it?"
"I received it with a file in a lark pie the day of my arrival."
"Certainly, you are decidedly a great man."
"I know it; besides that, I am a good man – for I might escape alone."
"And you have thought of me."
"I asked for you, saying that I wished to say adieu to you. I knew I should entice them to do some act of stupidity."
"Let us make haste, captain."
"On the contrary, let us act slowly and prudently; we have an hour before us."
"And the sentinels?"
"Bah! it is dark."
"But the moat, which is full of water?"
"It is frozen."
"But the wall?"
"When we are there, will be time enough to think about that."
"Must we fasten the ladder?"
"I want to try if it be solid; I have an affection for my spine, such as it is, and do not want to break my neck to save it from another fate."