"Hallo!" he cried. "Where are you, my friend?"
"Here," I answered, from the head of the stairs.
As he advanced, I came out of the darkness to meet him, staggering under the bundle of pallets which I had seen lying by the stair-head.
He whistled.
"What are you going to do with those?" he said.
"By your leave, I want this rope," I answered.
"What will you do with it?" he asked soberly. He was one of those even-tempered men to whom excitement, irritation, fear, are all foreign.
"Make a loop and throw it over the little pinnacle on the top of yonder dormer," I answered briefly, "and use it for a hand-rail."
"Can you throw it over?"
"I think so."
"The pinnacle will hold?"
"I hope so."
He shrugged his shoulders, and stood for a moment staring at me as I unwound the rope and formed a noose. At length: "But the noise, my friend?" he said. "If you miss the first time, and the second, the rope falling and sliding over the tiles will give the alarm."
"Two cats ran along the ridge a while ago," I answered. "Once, and, perhaps, twice, the noise will be set down to them. The third time I must succeed."
I thought it likely that he would forbid the attempt; but he did not.
On the contrary, he silently took hold of my belt, that I might lean out the farther and use my hands with greater freedom. Against the window I placed the bundle of pallets; setting one foot on them and the other heel on the pipe outside, I found I could whirl the loop with some chance of success.
Still, it was an anxious moment. As I craned over the dark street and, poising myself, fixed my eyes on the black, slender spirelet which surmounted the neighbouring window, I felt a shudder more than once run through me. I shrank from looking down. At last I threw: the rope fell short. Luckily it dropped clear of the window, and came home again against the wall below me, and so made no noise. The second time I threw with better heart; but I had the same fortune, except that I nearly overbalanced myself, and, for a moment, shut my eyes in terror.
The third time, letting out a little more rope, I struck the pinnacle, but below the k.n.o.b. The rope fell on the tiles, and slid down them with some noise, and for a full minute I stood motionless, half inside the room and half outside, expecting each instant to see a head thrust out of the other window. But no one appeared, no one spoke, though the light was still obscured at intervals; and presently I took courage to make a fourth attempt. I flung, and this time the rope fell with a dull thud on the tiles, and stopped there: the noose was round the pinnacle.
Gently I drew it tight, and then, letting it hang, I slipped back into the room, where we had before taken the precaution to put out the light. Herr Krapp asked me in a whisper if the rope was fast.
"Yes," I said. "I must secure this end to something."
He pa.s.sed it round the hinge of the left-hand shutter and made it safe. Then for a moment we stood together in the darkness.
"All right?" he said.
"All right," I answered hoa.r.s.ely.
The next moment the thing was done. I was outside, the rope in my hands, my feet on the bending pipe, the cool night air round my temples--below me, sheer giddiness, dancing lights, and blackness. For the moment I tottered. I balanced myself where I stood, and clung to the rope, shutting my eyes. If the pinnacle had given way then, I must have fallen like a plummet and been killed. One crash against the wall below, one grip at the rope as it tore its way through my fingers--and an end!
But the pinnacle held, and in a few seconds I gained wit and courage.
One step, then another, and then a third, taken warily, along the pipe, as I have seen rope-walkers take them at Heritzburg fair, and I was almost within reach of my goal. Two more, and, stooping, I could touch, with my right hand, the tiles of the little gable, while my left, raised above my head, still clutched the rope.
Then came an anxious moment. I had to pa.s.s under the rope, which was between me and the street, and between me and the window also--the window, my goal. I did it; but in my new position I found a new difficulty, and a grim one, confronting me. Standing outside the rope now, with my right hand clinging to it, I could not, with all my stretching, reach with my other hand any part of the window, or anything of which I could get a firm grip. The smooth tiles and crumbling mortar of the little gable gave no hold, while the rope, my grip on which I dared not for my life relax, prevented me stooping sufficiently to reach the sill or the window-case.
It was a horrible position. I stood still, sweating, trembling, and felt the wooden pipe bend and yield under me. Behind me, the depth, the street, yawned for me; before me, the black roof, shutting off the sky. My head reeled, my fingers closed on the ropes like claws; for a second I shut my eyes, and thought I was falling. In that moment I forgot Marie--I forgot everything, except the pavement below, the cruel stones, the depth; I would have given all, coward that I was, to be back in Herr Krapp"s room.
Then the fit pa.s.sed, and I stood, thinking. To take my hand from the rope would be to fall--to die. But could I lower the rope so that, still holding it, I could reach the sill, or the hinges, or some part of the window-case that would furnish a grip? I could think of only one way, and that a dangerous one; but I had no choice, nor any time to lose, if I would keep my head. I drew out my knife, and, leaning forward on the rope, with one knee on the tiles, I began to sever the cord as far away to my right as I could reach. This was to cut off my retreat--my connection with the window I had left; but I dared not let myself think much of that or of anything. I hacked away in a frenzy, and in a twinkling the rope flew apart, and I slipped forward on the tiles, clutching the piece that remained to me in a grasp of iron.
So far, good! I was trembling all over, but I was safe, and I lost not a moment in pa.s.sing the loose end twice round the fingers of my right hand. This done, only one thing remained to be done--only one thing: to lean over the abyss, trusting all my weight to the frail cord, and to grope for the sill. Only that! Well, I did it. My hair stood up straight as the pinnacle groaned and bent under my weight; my eyes must have been astare with terror; all my flesh crept. I clung to the face of the gable like a fly, but I did it! I reached the sill, clutched it, loosed the rope, and in a moment was lying on my breast, half in and half out of the window--safe!"
I do not know how long I hung there, recovering my breath and strength, but I suppose only a minute or two, though it seemed to me an hour. A while before I should have thought such a position, without foothold, above the dizzy street, perilous enough. Now it seemed to be safety. Nevertheless, as I grew cooler I began to think of getting in, of whom I should find there, of the issue of the attempt. And presently, lifting one leg over the sill, I stretched out a hand and drew aside a scanty curtain which hid the room from view. It was this curtain that, rising and falling with the draught, had led me to picture a figure moving to and fro.
There was no one to be seen, and for a moment I fancied that the room was empty. The light was on the other side, and my act disclosed nothing but a dusky corner under a sloping roof. The next instant, however, a harsh voice, which shook the rafters, cried, with an oath--
"What is that?"
I let the curtain fall and, as softly as I could, scrambled over the sill. My courage came back in face of a danger more familiar; my hand grew steady. As I sat on the sill, I drew out a pistol; but I dared not c.o.c.k it.
"Speak, or I shoot!" cried the same voice. "One, two! Was it the wind--Himmel--or one of those cats?"
I remained motionless. The speaker, whose voice I seemed to know, was clearly uncertain and a little sleepy. I hoped that he would not rouse the house and waste a shot on no better evidence; and I sat still in the smallest compa.s.s into which I could draw myself. I could see the light through the curtain, a makeshift thing of thin stuff, unbleached--and I tried to discern his figure, but in vain. At last I heard him sink back, grumbling uneasily.
I waited a few minutes, until his breathing became more regular, and then, with a cautious hand, I once more drew the curtain aside. As I had judged, the light stood on the floor, by the end of the pallet. On the pallet, his head uneasily pillowed on his arm, while the other hand almost touched the b.u.t.t of a pistol which lay beside the candle, sprawled the man who had spoken--a swarthy, reckless-looking fellow, still in his boots and dressed. His att.i.tude as he slept, alone in this quiet room, no less than the presence of the light and pistol, spoke of danger and suspicion. But I did not need the one sign or the other to warn me that my hopes and fears were alike realized. The man was Ludwig!
I dropped the curtain again, and sat thinking. I could not hope to overcome such a man without a struggle and noise that must alarm the house; and yet I must pa.s.s him, if I would do any good. My only course seemed to be to slip by him by stealth, open the door in the same manner, and gain the stairs. After that the house would be open to me, and it would go hard with any one who came between me and Marie. I did not doubt now that she was there.
I waited until his more regular breathing seemed to show that he slept, and then, after softly c.o.c.king my pistol, I set my feet to the floor, and began to cross it. Unluckily my nerves were still ajar with my roof-work. At the third step a board creaked under me; at the same moment I caught a glimpse of a huge, dark figure at my elbow, and though this was only my shadow, cast on the sloping roof by the candle, I sprang aside in a fright. The noise was enough to awaken the sleeper. As my eyes came back to him he opened his and saw me, and, raising himself, in a trice groped for his pistol. He could not on the instant find it, however, and I had time to cover him with mine.
"Have done!" I hissed. "Be still, or you are a dead man!"
"Martin Schwartz!" he cried, with a frightful oath.
"Yes," I rejoined; "and mark me, if you raise a finger, I fire."
He glared at me, and so we stood a moment. Then I said, "Push that pistol to me with your foot. Don"t put out your hand, or it will be the worse for you."
He looked at me for a moment, his face distorted with rage, as if he were minded to disobey at all risks; then he drew up his foot sullenly and set it against the pistol. I stepped back a pace and for an instant took my eyes from his--intending to s.n.a.t.c.h up the firearm as soon as it was out of his reach. In that instant he dashed out the light with his foot; I heard him spring up--and we were in darkness.
The surprise was complete, and I did not fire; but I had the presence of mind, believing that he had secured his pistol, to change my position--almost as quickly as he changed his. However, he did not fire; and so there we were in the pitchy darkness of the room, both armed, and neither knowing where the other stood.
I felt every nerve in my body tingle; but with rage, not fear. I dared not change my position again, lest a creaking board should betray me, now all was silent; but I crouched low in the darkness with the pistol in one hand and my knife drawn in the other, and listened for his breathing. The same consideration--we were both heavy men--kept him motionless also; and I remember to this day, that as we waited, scarcely daring to breathe--and for my part each moment expecting the flash and roar of a shot--one of the city clocks struck slowly and solemnly ten.
The strokes ceased. In the room I could not hear a sound, and I felt nervously round me with my knife; but without avail. I crouched still lower, lower, with a beating heart. The curtain obscured the window, there was no moon, no light showed under the door. The darkness was so complete that, but for a kind of fainter blackness that outlined the window, I could not have said in what part of the room I stood.
Suddenly a sharp loud "thud" broke the silence. It seemed to come from a point so close to me that I almost fired on that side before I could control my fingers. The next moment I knew that it was well I had not.
It was Ludwig"s knife flung at a venture--and now buried, as I guessed, an inch deep in the door--which had made the noise. Still, the action gave me a sort of inkling where he was, and, noiselessly facing round a trifle, I raised my pistol, and waited for some movement that might direct my aim.
I feared that he had a second knife; I hoped that in drawing it from its sheath he would make some noise. But all was still. Sharpen my ears as I might, I could hear nothing; strain my eyes as I might, I could see no shadow, no bulk in the darkness. A silence as of death prevailed. I could scarcely believe that he was still in the room. My courage, hot and fierce at first, began to wane under the trial. I felt the point of his knife already in my back; I winced and longed to be sheltered by the wall, yet dared not move to go to it. In another minute I think I should have fired at a sheer venture, rather than bear the strain longer; but at last a sound broke on my ear. The sound was not in the room, but in the house below. Some one was coming up the stairs.
The step reached a landing, and I heard it pause; a stumble, and it came on again up the next flight. Another pause, this time a longer one. Then it mounted again, and gradually a faint line of light shone under the door. I felt my breath come quickly. One glance at the door, which was near me on the right hand, and I peered away again, balancing the pistol in my hand. If Ludwig cried out or spoke, I would fire in the direction of the voice. Between two foes I was growing desperate.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Before I could recover myself a pair of strong arms closed round mine and bound them to my sides.]