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300 have gained our end, the delay of a night, and for to-morrow we can safely trust ourselves to the burghers."

"I would rather have trusted to these walls if only Babillon could have got up with the arms."

"But he cannot, in the face of the soldiery round the house."

"There is the secret passage. I could go and find him and guide him by that way."

"But the risk, man. If a suspicion were roused we should have the one chance of escape stopped. Not for an armoury full of guns and powder would I have that way discovered."

"True enough; it is perhaps too great a risk," agreed Pascal.

"My plan is this," explained Gerard. "We will hold the maison through the night—unless I am wrong and we are to be driven from it by force—and in the morning we will slip away secretly, Lucette and you accompanying us, and make first for the gates to leave the city with the pass we took from the spy, and if we fail we shall place ourselves in the hands of the burghers."

"And the men here?"

"Must remain until the last possible moment as a ruse. D'Artois will stay in command, and every show of continued resistance must be maintained. You'll see my thought. The Governor knows we are here and thinks he has us safely caged. In that belief the restrictions about passing in and out of the city will probably be relaxed; the search parties will be recalled from the city, and I am mistaken if a bold front and a slight disguise will not be all that is necessary for us to get away. Then by nightfall we shall be back with the troops to read this Governor a lesson."

"D'Artois had better continue the resistance here?"

"Only in form, of course. No lives need be thrown away. The only need is to blind the Castle people. But