The clock over the barbican struck four: and in a minute was being answer’d from tower after tower, down in the city.
“Four o’clock!” cried the man on the ladder: “time to stop work, and here goes for the last nail!” He drove it in and prepar’d to descend.
“Hi!” shouted a soldier, “you’ve forgot the rope.”
“That’ll wait till to-morrow. There’s a staple to drive in, too. I tell you I’m dry, and want my beer.”
He whipp’d his apron round his waist, and gathering up his nails, went down the ladder. At the foot he pick’d up his bag, shoulder’d the ladder, and loung’d away, leaving the coil of rope lying there. Presently the soldiers saunter’d off also, and the court was empty.
Now up to this moment I had but one idea of avoiding my fate, and that was to kill myself. ’Twas to this end I had borrow’d the bodkin of the maid. Afterward I had a notion of flinging myself from the window as they came for me. But now, as I look’d down on that coil of rope lying directly below, a prettier scheme struck me. I sat down on the floor of my cell and pull’d off my boots and stockings.
’Twas such a pretty plan that I got into a fever of impatience. Drawing off a stocking and picking out the end of the yarn, I began to unravel the knitting for dear life, until the whole lay, a heap of thread, on the floor. I then serv’d the other in the same way: and at the end had two lines, each pretty near four hundred yards in length: which now I divided into eight lines of about a hundred yards each.
With these I set to work, and by the end of twenty minutes had plaited a rope—if rope, indeed, it could be called—weak to be sure, but long enough to reach the ground with plenty to spare. Then, having bent my bodkin to the form of a hook, I tied it to the end of my cord, weighted it with a crown from my pocket, and clamber’d up to the window. I was going to angle for the hangman’s rope.
’Twas near dark by this; but I could just distinguish it on the paving stones below, and looking about the court, saw that no one was astir. I wriggled first my head, then a shoulder, through the opening, and let the line run gently through my hand. There was still many yards left, that could be paid out, when I heard my coin tinkle softly on the pavement.
Then began my difficulty. A dozen times I pull’d my hook across the coil before it hitch’d; and then a full three score of times the rope slipped away before I had rais’d it a dozen yards. My elbow was raw, almost, with leaning on the sill, and I began to lose heart and head, when, to my delight, the bodkin caught and held. It had fasten’d on a kink in the rope, not far from the end. I began to pull up, hand over hand, trembling all the while like a leaf.