CHAPTER XIV. TOO SHORT A SPOON.
Count Hannibal remained seated, his chin sunk on his breast, until his
ear assured him that the three men had descended the stairs to the floor
below. Then he rose, and, taking the lanthorn from the table, on which
Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the door, which, like the
window, stood in a recess--in this case the prolongation of the passage.
A brief scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way was impossible, and
he turned, after a cursory glance at the floor and ceiling, to the dark,
windy aperture which yawned at the end of the apartment. Placing the
lanthorn on the table, and covering it with his cloak, he mounted the
window recess, and, stepping to the unguarded edge, looked out.
He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told the truth. The smell of
the aguish flats which fringed that part of Paris rose strong in his
nostrils. He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine which divided
the Arsenal from the Ile des Louviers crawled below; but the night was
dark, and it was impossible to discern land from water. He fancied that
he could trace the outline of the island--an uninhabited place, given up
to wood piles; but the lights of the college quarter beyond it, which
rose feebly twinkling to the crown of St.
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