owly, as the silence persisted, their heads came
forward until the whole floor lay within the field of sight. And still
no sound! At last Tignonville stirred, crept through the doorway, and
rose up, peering round him. He nodded, and, satisfied that all was safe,
the minister followed him.

They found themselves a pace or so from the head of a narrow staircase,
leading downwards. Without moving, they could see the door which closed
it below. Tignonville signed to La Tribe to wait, and himself crept down
the stairs. He reached the door, and, stooping, set his eye to the hole
through which the string of the latch passed. A moment he looked, and
then, turning on tiptoe, he stole up again, his face fallen.

"You may throw the handle after the hatchet!" he muttered. "The man on
guard is within four yards of the door." And in the rage of
disappointment he struck the air with his hand.

"Is he looking this way?"

"No. He is looking down the passage towards our room. But it is
impossible to pass him."

La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the lattices which lighted
the room. It might be possible to escape that way, by the parapet and
the tiles. But he found that the casement was set high in the roof,
which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves. He passed to the other
window, in which a little wicket in the lattice stood open. He looked
through it. In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in the
dazzling sunshine, and, gazing down, he saw far below him, in the hot
square, a row of booths, and troops of people moving to and fro like
pigmies; and--and a strange thing, in the middle of all! Involuntarily,
as if the persons below could have seen his face at the tiny dormer, he
drew back.

He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him; and when the young man
complied, he bade him in a whisper look down. "See!" he muttered.
"There!"

The younger man saw and drew in his breath. Even under the coating of
dust his face turned a shade greyer.

"You had no need to fear that he would let us go!" the minister muttered,
with half-conscious irony.

"No."

"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe breathed a few words of
prayer. The object which had fixed his gaze was a gibbet: the only one
of the three which could be seen from their eyrie.

Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply away, and with haggard
eyes stared about the room. "We might defend the staircase," he
muttered. "Two men