"That were to fall still lower!" the minister answered, gravely regarding him. "I would, M. de Tignonville, you remembered that you are not yet out of jeopardy. Such a frame of mind as yours is no good preparation for death, let me tell you!" "He will not kill us!" Tignonville cried. "He knows better than most men how to avenge himself!" "Then he is above most!" La Tribe retorted. "For my part I wish I were sure of the fact, and I should sit here more at ease." "If we could escape, now, of ourselves!" Tignonville cried. "Then we should save not only life, but honour! Man, think of it! If we could escape, not by his leave, but against it! Are you sure that this is Angers?" "As sure as a man can be who has only seen the Black Town once or twice!" La Tribe answered, moving to the casement--which was not glazed--and peering through the rough wooden lattice. "But if we could escape we are strangers here. We know not which way to go, nor where to find shelter. And for the matter of that," he continued, turning from the window with a shrug of resignation, "'tis no use to talk of it while yonder foot goes up and down the passage, and its owner bears the key in his pocket." "If we could get out of his power as we came into it!" Tignonville cried. "Ay, if! But it is not every floor has a trap!" "We could take up a board." The minister raised his eyebrows. "We could take up a board!" the younger man repeated; and he stepped the mean chamber from end to end, his eyes on the floor. "Or--yes, _mon Dieu_!" with a change of attitude, "we might break through the roof?" And, throwing back his head, he scanned the cobwebbed surface of laths which rested on the unceiled joists. "Umph!" "Well, why not, Monsieur? Why not break through the ceiling?" Tignonville repeated, and in a fit of energy he seized his companion's shoulder and shook him. "Stand on the bed, and you can reach it." "And the floor which rests on it!" "_Par Dieu_, there is no floor! 'Tis a cockloft above us! See there! And there!" And the young man sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel of a spur through the laths. La Tribe's expression changed. He rose slowly to his feet. "Try again!" he said. Tignonville, his face red, drove the spur again between the laths, and worked it to and fro until he could pass his fingers into the hole he had made. Then he gripped and bent down a length of one of the laths, and, passing his arm as far as the elbow through the hole, moved it this way and that. His eyes, as he looked down at his companion through the falling rubbish, gleamed with triumph. "Where is your floor now?" he asked. "You can touch nothing?" "Nothing. It's open. A little more and I might touch the tiles." And he strove to reach higher. For answer La Tribe gripped him. "Down! Down, Monsieur," he muttered. "They are bringing our dinner."