“Beauvoir, seeing that he was safe under lock and key, did not imagine that his position could be any the worse if his real name were known.

“’Well, and supposing I were the Chevalier de Beauvoir, what should I gain by that?’ said he.

“‘Oh, there is everything to be gained by it,’ replied the jailer in an undertone.  ’I have been paid to help you to get away; but wait a minute!  If I were suspected in the smallest degree, I should be shot out of hand.  So I have said that I will do no more in the matter than will just earn the money.—­Look here,’ said he, taking a small file out of his pocket, ’this is your key; with this you can cut through one of your bars.  By the Mass, but it will not be any easy job,’ he went on, glancing at the narrow loophole that let daylight into the dungeon.

“It was in a splayed recess under the deep cornice that ran round the top of the tower, between the brackets that supported the embrasures.

“‘Monsieur,’ said the man, ’you must take care to saw through the iron low enough to get your body through.’

“‘I will get through, never fear,’ said the prisoner.

“‘But high enough to leave a stanchion to fasten a cord to,’ the warder went on.

“‘And where is the cord?’ asked Beauvoir.

“‘Here,’ said the man, throwing down a knotted rope.  ’It is made of raveled linen, that you may be supposed to have contrived it yourself, and it is long enough.  When you have got to the bottom knot, let yourself drop gently, and the rest you must manage for yourself.  You will probably find a carriage somewhere in the neighborhood, and friends looking out for you.  But I know nothing about that.—­I need not remind you that there is a man-at-arms to the right of the tower.  You will take care, of course, to choose a dark night, and wait till the sentinel is asleep.  You must take your chance of being shot; but—­’

“‘All right!  All right!  At least I shall not rot here,’ cried the young man.

“‘Well, that may happen nevertheless,’ replied the jailer, with a stupid expression.

“Beauvoir thought this was merely one of the aimless remarks that such folks indulge in.  The hope of freedom filled him with such joy that he could not be troubled to consider the words of a man who was no more than a better sort of peasant.  He set to work at once, and had filed the bars through in the course of the day.  Fearing a visit from the Governor, he stopped up the breaches with bread crumb rubbed in rust to make it look like iron; he hid his rope, and waited for a favorable night with the intensity of anticipation, the deep anguish of soul that makes a prisoner’s life dramatic.