All at once, though, I heard him whisper—
“Is de ting sauf?”
“Yes, yes,” I whispered in reply.
And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited, trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not get loose.
As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I ejaculated, quite loudly—
“Oh, Achille!”
“Eh, yais, oui,” he exclaimed. “I ’ave put in mine’s foot.”
“In what—in what, mon cher?” I whispered.
“Oh,” he gasped, in a thick voice, “mais je suis giddy. I ’ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back.”