There was a cupboard on the same side as the door; but between it and the window. It reached nearly to the ground, but not quite. Denys opened the cupboard door and placed Gerard on a chair behind it. "If they run for the bed, strike at the napes of their necks! a sword cut there always kills or disables." He then arranged the bolsters and their shoes in the bed so as to deceive a person peeping from a distance, and drew the short curtains at the head. Meantime Gerard was on his knees. Denys looked round and saw him. "Ah!" said Denys, "above all pray them to forgive me for bringing you into this guetapens!" And now they grasped hands and looked in one another's eyes; oh, such a look! Denys's hand was cold, and Gerard's warm. They took their posts. Denys blew out the candle. "We must keep silence now." But in the terrible tension of their nerves and very souls they found they could hear a whisper fainter than any man could catch at all outside that door. They could hear each other's heart thump at times. "Good news!" breathed Denys, listening at the door. "They are casting lots." * * * * * "Pray that it may be the Abbot." "Yes. Why?" "If he comes alone I can make sure of him." * * * * * "Denys!" "Ay!" "I fear I shall go mad, if they do not come soon." "Shall I feign sleep? Shall I snore?" "Will that--?" "Perhaps." "Do then, and God have mercy on us!" Denys snored at intervals. There was a scuffling of feet heard in the kitchen, and then all was still. Denys snored again. Then took up his position behind the door. But he, or they, who had drawn the lot, seemed determined to run no foolish risks. Nothing was attempted in a hurry. When they were almost starved with cold, and waiting for the attack, the door on the stairs opened softly and closed again. Nothing more. There was another harrowing silence. Then a single light footstep on the stair; and nothing more. Then a light crept under the door; and nothing more. * * * * * Presently there was a gentle scratching, not half so loud as a mouse's, and the false door-post opened by degrees and left a perpendicular space through which the light streamed in. The door, had it been bolted, would now have hung by the bare tip of the bolt, which went into the real door-post, but, as it was, it swung gently open of itself. It opened inwards, so Denys did not raise his crossbow from the ground, but merely grasped his dagger. The candle was held up, and shaded from behind by a man's hand. He was inspecting the beds from the threshold, satisfied that his victims were both in bed.