“Ah!” he muttered at last. “I think, down my legs ...” the rope that tied his ankles together had, in fact, yielded a little to his strenuous exertions. A few seconds more, and the rope came loose, he could shake off the coils altogether. He was able to get on his feet, he could get an arm free, unbind his fastenings altogether. But so cramped were his limbs, so numbed by long confinement, that the first step he tried to take, he staggered and had to sit down again. “If they come up and find me,” he told himself again, “I am done for!” But little by little the circulation was restored; he could stand on his feet, he could walk! Then, with the swiftness of decision that was characteristic of him, Jérôme Fandor, without an instant’s hesitation, hurried to the window and leant out over the sill. “That’s it,” he muttered; “the police have forgotten to remove the rope, or more likely they have left it there as a piece of evidence in view of the further inquiries they mean to institute, no doubt. Good! Where Fantômas found a way, I shall know how to follow his lead. But quick! quick! there’s not a moment to lose.” No sooner said than done. Following Fantômas’ example he climbed over the sill, seized the rope and let himself slide down into the void below. The night had turned dark, and the moon was hidden. As the journalist descended, he could barely make out, some yards below him, the dim outline of the roof of a tall building, and beyond again an endless succession of other roofs, broken by a forest of chimneys rising like spectres into the night sky. CHAPTER VII FANTÔMAS’ ULTIMATUM “Long live the Minister of Justice! Bravo, Ferrand! bravo! bravo!” These and the like cordial acclamations were still echoing in Désiré Ferrand’s ears as the Minister, in his elegant livery brougham, returned calmly and peaceably to the Place Vendôme about one o’clock in the morning, accompanied only by his Parliamentary Secretary, the Conseiller Navarret. Ferrand was on his way back from the grand amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, where he had presided over an associated meeting of the students in law. Désiré Ferrand was a man of boundless ambition. A General Practitioner in the provinces, and in no way interested in the science he practised, he had found himself from earliest manhood attracted, fascinated by the allurements and difficulties of politics. His profession as a doctor, a profession he exercised with a calculated generosity, provided admirable opportunities for winning the suffrages of his fellow citizens. At thirty-four he had been elected Deputy.