But another idea brought him to the wall, and from among the trees he looked down on the deserted valley, the forest with its dark trees, black and mysterious, in which he had noticed as he paused the mouths of the grottos. Aurelie thrown into one of them, a prisoner, and held under the terrible threat of the police, Aurelie a prisoner for two days, three days, a week if necessary, was not that an unexpected, triumphant dénouement, the beginning and the end of the adventure? He whistled sharply. Opposite him on the further bank of the pool two arms were waved above two bushes on the edge of the forest. The signal agreed on: two men were there, posted by him to help him carry out his plans. On this side of the pool, a boat was rocking. He hesitated no longer. He knew that opportunity is fleeting and that, if one does not seize it in its passing, it vanishes like a shadow. He crossed the terrace again and perceived that the girl seemed ready to come to. “Let us act,” he said, “if not——” He threw a handkerchief round her head and knotted it across her mouth to form a gag. Then he took her up in his arms and carried her away. She was slight and hardly weighed anything at all. He was a strong man. His burden seemed light. Nevertheless as he came to the breach in the wall and perceived the almost vertical descent worn by storms in the lower part of it, he studied it carefully and decided that it was necessary to take precautions. Therefore he set Aurelie down at the edge of the breach. Was she waiting for him to make this mistake? Was it a sudden inspiration? In any case his carelessness was at once punished. With an unexpected movement and with a swiftness and decision which took him aback, she tore the handkerchief from her mouth, and without caring what happened, let herself slide from the top to the bottom, like a loosened stone which rolls with an avalanche of pebbles and sand from which rises a cloud of dust. Recovering from his surprise he dashed after her at the risk of falling, and perceived that she was running at haphazard in a zigzag course from the cliff to the bank of the pool, like a hunted beast that does not know which way to fly. “You’re lost, my dear,” he muttered. “There’s nothing for you to do but bend the knee.”