Page:Harris Dickson--The black wolf's breed.djvu/135

Rh let you go. And mind that you make not the slightest sound which may attract the soldiers."

"Ah, you fear the soldiers too?" he asked, vaguely trying to puzzle out why I should be afraid of those in whose service I was.

"It is not to our purpose to talk. I simply want the credit myself, and do not want to share it with those fellows out there. We must work to leave this place at once. Do you stand where you are."

I gathered up the scattered weapons and piled them all in one corner, farthest from the door, where I now proposed to set about getting free. With the fearful blight of uncovered treason in his soul, Broussard obeyed me cringingly as a servant, and worked as hard, for his safety lay in mine. We went first to the door by which we entered, and after a tedious examination failed to find any means by which it could be opened or broken down. A stout latch, of some pattern we could not tell, held it fast from the outside. There was no catch or fastening of any sort within. The age-hardened oak, studded as it was with heavily wrought nails, forbade the plan of cutting through. This would require days and days of patient labour, and I was already faint from lack of food and the exhaustion of the night. Plainly the room was intended for a prison, and as such it served well its purpose. Baffled and disheartened I turned my thought to the window. It looked out upon the street; this was so much in my favor. The irons that guarded it were close set, bending out toward the street in the shape of a bow. I judged this was in order that archers