“What’s the matter?”
“A noise . . . up above....”
Standing motionless on the platform, they listened. Lupin thought of the Sire de Tancarville and the sentry who had killed him with a shot from his harquebus. He shivered, feeling all the anguish of the silence and the darkness.
“No,” he said, “I was mistaken.... Besides, it’s absurd.... They can’t hit us here.”
“Who would hit us?”
“No one . . . no one... it was a silly notion....”
He groped about till he found the uprights of the ladder; then he said:
“There, here’s the ladder. It is fixed in the bed of the river. A friend of mine is looking after it, as well as your cousins.”
He whistled:
“Here I am,” he said, in a low voice. “Hold the ladder fast.” And, to Daubrecq, “I’ll go first.”