A hasty movement, and he would have fallen.
But he possessed a marvellous power of will, which prevented him from attempting any violent effort. Prudently, but with determined energy, he screwed his feet and his knees into the crevices of the rock, feeling with his hands for some point of support, and gradually sinking to one side, he finally succeeded in dragging himself from the verge of the precipice.
It was time, for a cramp seized him with such violence that he was obliged to sit down and rest for a moment.
That the baron had been killed by his fall, Bavois did not doubt for an instant. But this catastrophe did not produce much effect upon the old soldier, who had seen so many comrades fall by his side on the field of battle.
What did amaze him was the breaking of the rope—a rope so large that one would have supposed it capable of sustaining the weight of ten men like the baron.
As he could not, by reason of the darkness, see the ruptured place, Bavois felt it with his finger; and, to his inexpressible astonishment, he found it smooth. No filaments, no rough bits of hemp, as usual after a break; the surface was perfectly even.
The corporal comprehended what Maurice had comprehended below.
“The scoundrels have cut the rope!” he exclaimed, with a frightful oath.
And a recollection of what had happened three or four hours previous arose in his mind.
“This,” he thought, “explains the noise which the poor baron heard in the next room! And I said to him: ‘Nonsense! it is a rat!’”