hief?"

No answer.

"And yet," thought Mazeroux, "as he telephoned, he can't be far away."

In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from
its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of
brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the
light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the
ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But
the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not
see the captive's head.

He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was
reassured by the warmth of its touch.

"Is that you, Mazeroux?" asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to
come from very far away.

"Yes, it's I. You're not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?"

"No, only stunned--and a bit faint--from hunger.... Listen to me."

"I'm listening."

"Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk.... You'll find--"

"Yes, Chief?"

"An old stick of chocolate."

"But--"

"Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I'm famished."

Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a
gayer voice:

"That's better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread
and some water."

"I'll be back at once, Chief."

"Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur's room and the secret
passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top."

And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the
hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.

The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught
hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.

"Oh, dear, oh dear!" he moaned, in a voice full of pity. "What a
position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug
down, where you lay, and gone on digging--for more than a yard! And it
took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!"

When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of
bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:

"Yes, it took the devil's own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap's
ideas are whirling in his head and he can't use his brain, upon my word,
all he asks is to die? And then there was no air, you see. I couldn't
breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I
was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a
jelly. But there, I was thinking o