ouse, with his hands bound.
He began to think of means of escape. The iron door had no inside latch.
There was a small damper covering a barred hole, through which perhaps
he might be able to get a hand, if only it were free. He turned round so
that his fingers might feel the grated opening. The edge of the little
bars was sharp. He placed the strap binding his wrists against these
sharp edges, and drew his arms up and down, a difficult and painful
business. The iron cut his hands and wrists at first, so awkward was the
movement. But, steeling himself, he kept on steadily.

At last the straps fell apart, and his hands were free. With difficulty
he thrust one through the bars. His fingers could just lift the latch.
Now the door creaked on its hinges, and in a moment he was out on the
stone flags of the bakeroom. Hurrying through an unlocked passage
into the shop, he felt his way to the street door, but it was securely
fastened. The windows? He tried them both, one on either side, but while
he could free the stout wooden shutters on the inside, a heavy iron bar
secured them without, and it was impossible to open them.

Feverish with anxiety, he sat down on the low counter, with his
hands between his knees, and tried to think what to do. In the numb
hopelessness of the moment he became very quiet. His mind was confused,
but his senses were alert; he was in a kind of dream, yet he was acutely
conscious of the smell of new-made bread. It pervaded the air of the
place; it somehow crept into his brain and his being, so that, as long
as he might live, the smell of new-made bread would fetch back upon him
the nervous shiver and numbness of this hour of danger.

As he waited, he heard a noise outside, a clac-clac! clac-clac! which
seemed to be echoed back from the wood and stone of the houses in the
street, and then to be lifted up and carried away over the roofs and
out to sea---clac-clac! clac-clac! It was not the tap of a blind man's
staff--at first he thought it might be; it was not a donkey's foot on
the cobbles; it was not the broom-sticks of the witches of St. Clement's
Bay, for the rattle was below in the street, and the broom-stick rattle
is heard only on the roofs as the witches fly across country from
Rocbert to Bonne Nuit Bay.

This clac-clac came from the sabots of some nightfarer. Should he make a
noise and attract the attention of the passer-by? No, that would not
do. It might be some one who would wish to know