“A copy of the key, Paul!” said Father Hamilton; “sure there are no bounds to thy cheerful mad expectancy! But go on! go on! art sure he could not be prevailed on--this fairy godfather--to give us an escort of cavalry and trumpeters?” “This is not much of a backing-up, Father Hamilton,” I said, annoyed at his skeptic comments upon an affair that involved so much and agitated myself so profoundly. “Pardon! Paul,” he said hastily, confused and vexed himself at the reproof. “Art quite right, I'm no more than a croaker, and for penance I shall compel myself to do the wildest feat thou proposest.” We determined to put off the attempt at escape till I had communicated with the sous-officer (in truth, though Father Hamilton did not know it, till I had communicated with Bernard the Swiss), and it was the following afternoon I had not only an assurance of the unlocked door, but in my hand a more trustworthy plan of the prison than my own, and the promise that the Swiss would be waiting with a carriage outside the palisades when we broke through, any time between midnight and five in the morning. Next day, then, we were in a considerable agitation; to that extent indeed that I clean forgot that we had no aid to our descent of twenty or thirty feet (as the sous-sergeant's diagram made it) from the roof of our block on to that of the one adjoining. We had had our minds so much on bolted doors and armed sentinels that this detail had quite escaped us until almost on the eve of setting out at midnight, the priest began again to sigh about his bulk and swear no rope short of a ship's cable would serve to bear him. “Rope!” I cried, in a tremendous chagrin at my stupidity. “Lord! if I have not quite forgot it. We have none.” “Ah!” he said, “perhaps it is not necessary. Perhaps my heart is so light at parting with my _croque-mort_ that I can drop upon the tiles like a pigeon.” “Parting,” I repeated, eyeing him suspiciously, for I thought perhaps he had changed his mind again. “Who thinks of parting?” “Not I indeed,” says he, “unless the rope do when thou hast got it.” There was no rope, however, and I cursed my own folly that I had not asked one from the sous-officer whose complaisance might have gone the length of a fathom or two, though it did not, as the priest suggested, go so far as an armed convoy and a brace of trumpeters. It was too late now to repair the overlook, and to the making of rope the two of us had there and then to apply ourselves, finding the sheets and blankets-of our beds scanty enough for our purpose, and by no means of an assuring elegance or strength when finished. But we had thirty feet of some sort of cord at the last, and whether it was elegant or not it had to do for our purpose.