er it: this event was
not so extraordinary that they paid any great attention to it: all they
did was to carry Don Manuel to his room and lift Caesar on the bed; then
they put away the remnant of the meal for the next day's supper, shut
the door very carefully, and left their prisoner alone.

Caesar stayed for a minute motionless and apparently plunged in the
deepest sleep; but when he had heard the steps retreating, he quietly
raised his head, opened his eyes, slipped off the bed, walked to the
door, slowly indeed, but not to all appearance feeling the accident of
the night before, and applied his ear for some minutes to the keyhole;
then lifting his head with an expression of indescribable pride, he
wiped his brow with his hand, and for the first time since his guards
went out, breathed freely with full-drawn breaths.

There was no time to lose: his first care was to shut the door as
securely on the inside as it was already shut on the outside, to blow
out the lamp, to open the window, and to finish sawing through the bar.
When this was done, he undid the bandages on his leg, took down the
window and bed curtains, tore them into strips, joined the sheets, table
napkins and cloth, and with all these things tied together end to end,
formed a rope fifty or sixty feet long, with knots every here and there.
This rope he fixed securely to the bar next to the one he had just cut
through; then he climbed up to the window and began what was really the
hardest part of his perilous enterprise, clinging with hands and feet
to this fragile support. Luckily he was both strong and skilful, and
he went down the whole length of the rope without accident; but when he
reached the end and was hanging on the last knot, he sought in vain to
touch the ground with his feet; his rope was too short.

The situation was a terrible one: the darkness of the night prevented
the fugitive from seeing how far off he was from the ground, and his
fatigue prevented him from even attempting to climb up again. Caesar
put up a brief prayer, whether to Gad or Satan he alone could say; then
letting go the rope, he dropped from a height of twelve or fifteen feet.

The danger was too great for the fugitive to trouble about a few
trifling contusions: he at once rose, and guiding himself by the
direction of his window, he went straight to the little door of exit;
he then put his hand into the pocket of his doublet, and a cold sweat
damped his brow; either he h