Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/114

 boxes. With the utmost precaution we crept upon the summit, and down the breast work towards the outer edge of the rampart, when the sentinel made his quarter-hourly cry of "Sentinelle prenez guarde à vous," similar to our "All's well;" this, though it created for a moment rather an unpleasant sensation, convinced me that we had reached thus far unobserved.

I then forced the poker into the earth, and, by rising, and falling with nearly my whole weight hammered it down with my chest; about two feet behind, I did the same with the stake, fastening a small line from the upper part of the poker to the lower part of the stake: this done, we made the well-rope secure round the poker, and gently let it down through one of the grooves in the rampart, which receives a beam of the draw-bridge when up. I then cautiously descended this half chimney, as it were, by the rope; when I had reached about two thirds of the way down, part of a brick fell, struck against the side, and re-bounded against my chest, this I luckily caught between my knees,