Suddenly, a short time after the sentinel who was stationed upon the platform of the tower from two o'clock to four had been relieved by him whose tour of duty ran from four to six, a sound like a human cry, as if uttered by lungs of brass, made itself distinctly heard amid the tempest, over the moaning of the sea. Then the newly arrived sentry might have been seen to start, listen attentively, and lean his cross-bow against the wall, after he had made sure of the source of this strange sound. Next, when he had satisfied himself that no eye was upon him, he lifted, with a mighty arm, his sentry-box from the rock, and drew from beneath it a pile of rope which assumed the shape of a long knotted ladder, which he securely fastened to the pieces of iron fixed in the battlements. Finally he attached the various pieces of rope firmly together, and lowered them over the walls, when two heavy pieces of lead quickly carried the ends down upon the rock on which the fort was built. The ladder was two hundred and twelve feet long, and the fort two hundred and fifteen feet high. Scarcely had he completed his mysterious operation when the night patrol appeared at the top of the steps leading to the platform. As the sentinel was standing near his box, the patrol asked and received the countersign, and passed on without noticing anything out of the regular course. The sentinel, much relieved in his mind, anxiously awaited what was to follow. It was already quarter past four. At the foot of the cliff was a boat manned by fourteen men, who, after more than two hours of hard and almost superhuman labor, had succeeded in reaching the Risbank fort. A wooden ladder was placed against the cliff. It reached up to a sort of excavation in the rock, were five or six men might stand at once. One by one, and in absolute silence, the bold adventurers mounted the ladder from the boat, and without stopping at the excavation, continued clambering up the cliff, using both their feet and hands, and taking advantage of every inequality in the face of the rock. Their purpose was to reach the foot of the tower. But the darkness was intense, and the rock slippery; their fingers were torn and bleeding, and one of them lost his footing, and rolled helplessly down until he fell into the sea. Luckily the last of the fourteen men was still in the boat, trying vainly to make her fast before trusting himself to the ladder. The man who had fallen, and who had had the forethought and courage not to utter a cry as he fell, swam vigorously toward the boat. The other lent him a hand, and despite the pitching of the boat under his feet, had the satisfaction of rescuing him safe and sound. "What! is it you, Martin-Guerre?" said he, thinking that he recognized him in the darkness. "It is myself, I admit, Monseigneur," said the squire. "How came you to slip, bungler?" asked Gabriel. "It was much better that it should have happened to me than to another," said Martin. "Why?"