Captain Markart thought he would smoke his cigar in the little room, lying on the bed; he was tired and sleepy—very sleepy, there was no denying it. Lepage sat down and ate and drank; he found no fault with the wine in the first bottle. Then he went and looked at Markart. The Captain lay in his shirt, breeches, and boots. He was sound asleep and breathing heavily; his cigar had fallen on the sheet, but apparently had been out before it fell. Lepage regarded him with pursed lips, shrugged his shoulders, and slipped the Captain's revolver into his pocket. The Captain's recovery must be left to Fate.
For the next hour he worked at his pair of sheets, slicing, twisting, and splicing. In the end he found himself possessed of a fairly stout rope twelve or thirteen feet long, but he could find nothing solid to tie it to near the window, except the bed, and that was a yard away. He would still have a fall of some twenty feet, and the ground was hard with a spring frost. There would be need of the mattress. He put out all the lights in the room and cautiously raised the window.
The night was dark, he could not see the ground. He stood there ten minutes. Then he heard a measured tramp; a dark figure, just distinguishable, came round the corner of the Palace, walked past the window to the end of the building, turned, walked back, and disappeared. Hurriedly Lepage struck a match and took the time. Again he waited, again the figure came. Again he struck a light and took the time. He went through this process five times before he felt reasonably sure that he could rely on having ten minutes to himself if he started the moment Sterkoff's sentry had gone round the corner of the building.
He pulled the mattress up onto the sill of the window and waited. There was no sound now but of Markart's stertorous breathing. But presently the measured tramp below came, passed, turned, and passed away. Lepage gave a last tug at the fastenings of his rope, threw the end out of window, took the mattress, and dropped it very carefully as straight down as he could.
The next moment, in spite of Sterkoff, somebody had left the Palace. Why not? The runaway was aware that the King was not really suffering from influenza—he could spend an evening in Slavna without reproach!
"I wish I knew the safest way to fall!" thought Lepage, dangling at the end of his rope. It swayed about terribly; he waited awhile for it to steady itself—he feared to miss the mattress; but he could not wait long, or that measured tramp and that dark figure would come. There would be a sudden spurt of light, and a report—and what of Lepage then? He gathered his legs up behind his knees, took a long breath—and fell. As luck would have it, though he landed on the very edge of the mattress, yet he did land on it, and tumbled forward on his face, shaken, but with bones intact. There was a numb feeling above his knees—nothing worse than that.
He drew another long breath. Heavy bodies—and even mattresses—fall quickly; he must have seven or eight minutes yet!
But no! Heavy bodies, even mattresses, falling quickly, make a noise. Lepage, too, had come down with a thud, squashing hidden air out of the interstices of the mattress. The silence of night will give resonance to gentler sounds than that, which was as though a giant had squeezed his mighty sponge. Lepage, on his numb knees, listened. The steps came, not measured now, but running. The dark figure came running round the corner. What next? Next the challenge—then the spurt of light and the report! What of Lepage then? Nothing—so far as Lepage and the rest of humanity for certainty knew.
Of that nothing—actual or possible—Lepage did not approve. He hitched the mattress onto his back, bent himself nearly double, and, thus both burdened and protected, made for the river. He must have looked like a turtle scurrying to the sea, lest he should be turned over—and so left for soup in due season.
"Who goes there? Halt! Halt!"