"The scoundrels have cut the rope!" he exclaimed, with a frightful oath.
And a recollection of what had happened three or four hours previous arose in his mind.
"This," he thought, "explains the noise which the poor baron heard in the next room! And I said to him: "Nonsense! it is a rat!""
Then he thought of a very simple method of verifying his conjectures. He pa.s.sed the cord about the crowbar and pulled it with all his strength.
It parted in three places.
This discovery appalled him.
A part of the rope had fallen with the unfortunate baron, and it was evident that the remaining fragments tied together would not be long enough to reach to the base of the rock.
From this isolated ledge it was impossible to reach the ground upon which the citadel was built.
"You are in a fine fix, Corporal," he growled.
Honest Bavois looked the situation full in the face, and saw that it was desperate.
"Well, Corporal, your jig is up!" he murmured, "At daybreak they will find that the baron"s cell is empty. They will poke their heads out of the window, and they will see you here, like a stone saint upon his pedestal. Naturally, you will be captured, tried, condemned; and you will be led out to take your turn in the ditches. Ready! Aim! Fire! And that will be the end of your story."
He stopped short. A vague idea had entered his mind, which he felt might possibly be his salvation.
It came to him in touching the rope which he had used in his descent from the prison to the ledge, and which, firmly attached to the bars, hung down the side of the tower.
"If you had that rope which hangs there useless, Corporal, you could add it to these fragments, and then it would be long enough to carry you to the foot of the rock. But how shall I obtain it? It is certainly impossible to go back after it! and how can I pull it down when it is so securely fastened to the bars?"
He sought a way, found it, and pursued it, talking to himself all the while as if there were two corporals; one prompt to conceive, the other, a trifle stupid, to whom it was necessary to explain everything in detail.
"Attention, Corporal," said he. "You are going to knot these five pieces of rope together and attach them to your waist; then you are going to climb up to that window, hand over hand. Not an easy matter! A carpeted staircase is preferable to that rope dangling there. But no matter, you are not finical, Corporal! So you climb it, and here you are in the cell again. What are you going to do? A mere nothing. You are unfastening the cord attached to the bars; you will tie it to this, and that will give you eighty feet of good strong rope. Then you will pa.s.s the rope about one of the bars that remain intact; the rope will thus be doubled; then you let yourself down again, and when you are here, you have only to untie one of the knots and the rope is at your service. Do you understand, Corporal?"
The corporal did understand so well that in less than twenty minutes he was back again upon the narrow shelf of rock, the difficult and dangerous operation which he had planned accomplished.
Not without a terrible effort; not without torn and bleeding hands and knees.
But he had succeeded in obtaining the rope, and now he was certain that he could make his escape from his dangerous position. He laughed gleefully, or rather with that chuckle which was habitual to him.
Anxiety, then joy, had made him forget M. d"Escorval. At the thought of him, he was smitten with remorse.
"Poor man!" he murmured. "I shall succeed in saving my miserable life, for which no one cares, but I was unable to save him. Undoubtedly, by this time his friends have carried him away."
As he uttered these words he was leaning over the abyss. He doubted the evidence of his own senses when he saw a faint light moving here and there in the depths below.
What had happened? For something very extraordinary must have happened to induce intelligent men like the baron"s friends to display this light, which, if observed from the citadel, would betray their presence and ruin them.
But Corporal Bavois"s moments were too precious to be wasted in idle conjectures.
"Better go down on the double-quick," he said aloud, as if to spur on his courage. "Come, my friend, spit on your hands and be off!"
As he spoke the old soldier threw himself flat on his belly and crawled slowly backward to the verge of the precipice. The spirit was strong, but the flesh shuddered. To march upon a battery had always been a mere pastime to the worthy corporal; but to face an unknown peril, to suspend one"s life upon a cord, was a different matter.
Great drops of perspiration, caused by the horror of his situation, stood out upon his brow when he felt that half his body had pa.s.sed the edge of the precipice, and that the slightest movement would now launch him into s.p.a.ce.
He made this movement, murmuring:
"If there is a G.o.d who watches over honest people let Him open His eyes this instant!"
The G.o.d of the just was watching.
Bavois arrived at the end of his dangerous journey with torn and bleeding hands, but safe. He fell like a ma.s.s of rock; and the rudeness of the shock drew from him a groan resembling the roar of an infuriated beast.
For more than a minute he lay there upon the ground stunned and dizzy.
When he rose two men seized him roughly.
"Ah, no foolishness," he said quickly. "It is I, Bavois."
This did not cause them to relax their hold.
"How does it happen," demanded one, in a threatening tone, "that Baron d"Escorval falls and you succeed in making the descent in safety a few moments later?"
The old soldier was too shrewd not to understand the whole import of this insulting question.
The sorrow and indignation aroused within him gave him strength to free himself from the hands of his captors.
"_Mille tonnerres_!" he exclaimed; "so I pa.s.s for a traitor, do I! No, it is impossible--listen to me."
Then rapidly, but with surprising clearness, he related all the details of his escape, his despair, his perilous situation, and the almost insurmountable obstacles which he had overcome. To hear was to believe.
The men--they were, of course, the retired army officers who had been waiting for the baron--offered the honest corporal their hands, sincerely sorry that they had wounded the feelings of a man who was so worthy of their respect and grat.i.tude.
"You will forgive us, Corporal," they said, sadly. "Misery renders men suspicious and unjust, and we are very unhappy."
"No offence," he growled. "If I had trusted poor Monsieur d"Escorval, he would be alive now."
"The baron still breathes," said one of the officers.
This was such astounding news that Bavois was utterly confounded for a moment.
"Ah! I will give my right hand, if necessary, to save him!" he exclaimed, at last.
"If it is possible to save him, he will be saved, my friend. That worthy priest whom you see there, is an excellent physician. He is examining Monsieur d"Escorval"s wounds now. It was by his order that we procured and lighted this candle, which may bring our enemies upon us at any moment; but this is not a time for hesitation."
Bavois looked with all his eyes, but from where he was standing he could discover only a confused group of moving figures.
"I would like to see the poor man," he said, sadly.
"Come nearer, my good fellow; fear nothing!"