I.

"O no, I beg yours," said he. "You understand me perfectly, just as I do
you."

I murmured something about enigmas.

"Well, shall I give you the key to the enigma?" said he, leaning back.
"That was the young lady whom Goguelat insulted and whom you avenged. I
do not blame you. She is a heavenly creature."

"With all my heart, to the last of it!" said I. "And to the first also,
if it amuses you! You are become so very acute of late that I suppose
you must have your own way."

"What is her name?" he asked.

"Now, really," said I. "Do you think it likely she has told me?"

"I think it certain," said he.

I could not restrain my laughter. "Well, then, do you think it likely I
would tell you?" I cried.

"Not a bit," said he.--"But come, to our lesson!"

CHAPTER VI

THE ESCAPE

The time for our escape drew near, and the nearer it came the less we
seemed to enjoy the prospect. There is but one side on which this Castle
can be left either with dignity or safety; but as there is the main gate
and guard, and the chief street of the upper city, it is not to be
thought of by escaping prisoners. In all other directions an abominable
precipice surrounds it, down the face of which (if anywhere at all) we
must regain our liberty. By our concurrent labours in many a dark night,
working with the most anxious precautions against noise, we had made out
to pierce below the curtain about the south-west corner, in a place they
call the Devil's Elbow. I have never met that celebrity; nor (if the
rest of him at all comes up to what they called his elbow) have I the
least desire of his acquaintance. From the heel of the masonry, the
rascally, breakneck precipice descended sheer among waste lands,
scattered suburbs of the city, and houses in the building. I had never
the heart to look for any length of time--the thought that I must make
the descent in person some dark night robbing me of breath; and, indeed,
on anybody not a seaman or a steeple-jack the mere sight of the Devil's
Elbow wrought like an emetic.

I don't know where the rope was got, and doubt if I much cared. It was
not that which gravelled me, but whether, now that we had it, it would
serve our turn. Its length, indeed, we made a shift to fathom out; but
who was to tell us how that length compared with the way we had to go?
Day after day, there would be always some of us stolen out to the
Devil's Elbow and making estimates of the descent, whether by a ba