Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/305

Rh 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!”