The man had no weapon--at any rate he did not strike; and Claude, taken by surprise, could not level his pike in the narrow stairway. For a moment they wrestled, Claude striving to bring his weapon to bear on his foe, the latter trying to strangle him. But the advantage of the stairs lay with the first comer, who was the uppermost, and gradually he bore Claude back and back. The young man, however, would not let go such hold as he had, and both were on the point of falling out on the floor of the guard-room when the light disclosed Claude's face. "You are of us!" his opponent panted. And abruptly he released his grip. "Geneva!" "I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!" Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!" With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of "Ville gagnee! gagnee!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise. Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised it again for practice. The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, and the huge machine fall by its own weight.