t Raoul; then he turned his eyes upward,
toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint glimmer of a
lantern, through a cranny between two boards. This glimmer seemed to
trouble the Persian.

At last, he tossed his head and made up his mind to act. He slipped
between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE, with Raoul
close upon his heels. With his free hand, the Persian felt the wall.
Raoul saw him bear heavily upon the wall, just as he had pressed
against the wall in Christine's dressing-room. Then a stone gave way,
leaving a hole in the wall.

This time, the Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made a sign
to Raoul to do as he did. He cocked the pistol.

And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole in the
wall. Raoul, who had wished to pass first, had to be content to follow
him.

The hole was very narrow. The Persian stopped almost at once. Raoul
heard him feeling the stones around him. Then the Persian took out his
dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath him and
immediately extinguished his lantern. Raoul heard him say, in a
whisper:

"We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise; take off
your boots."

The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.

"Put them outside the wall," he said. "We shall find them there when
we leave."[5]

He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round and
said:

"I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and let
myself drop INTO HIS HOUSE. You must do exactly the same. Do not be
afraid. I will catch you in my arms."

Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall of the
Persian, and then dropped down.

He felt himself clasped in the Persian's arms.

"Hush!" said the Persian.

And they stood motionless, listening.

The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.

Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,
turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through which
they had come, and failing to find it:

"Oh!" he said. "The stone has closed of itself!"

And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.

The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he
examined for a second and flung away with horror.

"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.

"What is it?" asked Raoul.

The Persian shivered. "It might very well be the rope by which the man