Page:The Teeth of the Tiger - Leblanc - 1914.djvu/314

 "Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur's room and the secret passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top."

And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.

The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.

"Oh, dear, oh dear!" he moaned, in a voice full of pity. "What a position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug down, where you lay, and gone on digging—for more than a yard! And it took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!"

When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:

"Yes, it took the devil's own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap's ideas are whirling in his head and he can't use his brain, upon my word, all he asks is to die! And then there was no air, you see. I couldn't breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a jelly. But there, I was thinking of that confounded business of the explosion and I wanted to warn you at all costs, and I dug away at my tunnel. What a job! And then, oof! I felt space at last!

"I got my hand through and next my arm. Where was I? Why, over the telephone, of course! I knew that at once by feeling the wall and finding the wires. Then it took me quite half an hour to get hold of the instrument. I couldn't reach it with my arm.