"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.