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!"
The younger man saw and drew in his breath. Even under the coating of
dust his face turned a shade greyer.
"You had no need to fear that he would let us go!" the minister muttered,
with half-conscious irony.
"No."
"Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe breathed a few words of
prayer. The object which had fixed his gaze was a gibbet: the only one
of the three which could be seen from their eyrie.
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