He next turned his attention to getting himself out, and climbing up, and squeezing and squirming, legs first, at last managed once more to stand outside on the gallery floor. But it had happened that just as he was making the last twist through the bars, his foot had accidentally touched the scabbard, hanging from the window, and it clanked against the wall. This time the sound seemed to penetrate the ears of the sleeping Count Hugo, for he started up in earnest, though not entirely awake; he drowsily arose, however, and crossed over to the window. Geoffrey, meantime, hearing him coming, drew back into the shadow, tightly clutching the sword, and was hidden by the curtain of vines. As the count peered through the bars, he caught sight of the cockatoo, whose perch was in one of the gable windows near by. Now, as good luck had it, the cockatoo also had been half aroused from his sleep, and giving a faint screech, began to shift uneasily in his dreams, from one leg to the other, his chain clanking against his perch as he did so. Count Hugo hearing him, at once supposed the cockatoo responsible for that other clanking sound which had aroused him; he swore a round oath, and turned from the window, muttering to himself, “A plague on that jabbering popinjay! What with their everlasting peacocks and monkeys, and heaven only knows what, a man can not get a wink of sleep in this accursed tavern!” He then went back to bed and, angrily flinging himself down, was soon snoring soundly. After a while, Geoffrey, outside on the gallery, began creeping cautiously along, and at last managing to get down the stairway, stood hesitating a moment at its foot; for he had not fully decided what to do with the sword, now that he had it. He wished as soon as possible to be rid of the wicked thing; for everybody was superstitious in those days, and he felt that some fearful evil threatened him so long as he had hold of the fatal weapon. He would really have very much liked to take it out and throw it in the river Dives, so it could never kill any one else; but as he remembered that to do this he would have to climb over the high wall of the courtyard, for the gate was locked and the portcullis down, and that then he would have to run the risk of meeting the town watchman, he concluded the chances for being caught were too many, and that he must hide the sword elsewhere. Moreover, he thought that to drop it in the river would be too much like stealing, anyway, which he did not wish to be guilty of; he merely wished to keep the count from finding the sword until the heralds came, when he was willing to restore it.