Page:The Prisoner of Zenda.djvu/247

 CHAPTER XVII. YOUNG RUPERT'S MIDNIGHT DIVERSIONS. night came fine and clear. I had prayed for dirty weather, such as had favored my previous voyage in the moat, but Fortune was this time against me. Still I reckoned that by keeping close under the wall and in the shadow I could escape detection from the windows of the château that looked out on the scene of my efforts. If they searched the moat, indeed my scheme must fail; but I did not think they would. They had made Jacob's ladder secure against attack. Johann had himself helped to fix it closely to the masonry on the under side, so that it could not now be moved from below any more than from above. An assault with explosives or a long battering with picks alone could displace it, and the noise involved in either of these operations put them out of the question. What harm, then, could a man do in 227