"I've picked up a rope; I shall fasten it round his neck; and, if he jibs, he'll feel a sharp tug to recall him to the true state of things. Only, Paul, I warn you that, if he takes it into his head to struggle, I am incapable of killing him just like that, in cold blood."
"Don't worry. He's too much afraid to struggle. He'll go with you like a lamb to the other end of the tunnel. When you get there, lock him up in some corner of the château, but don't tell any one who he is."
"And you, Paul?"
"Never mind about me."
"Still . . ."
"We both stand the same risk. We're going to play a terribly dangerous game and there's every chance of our losing it. But, if we win, it means Élisabeth's safety. So we must go for it boldly. Good-bye, Bernard, for the present. In ten minutes everything will be settled one way or the other."
They embraced and Paul walked away.
As he had said, this one last effort could succeed only through promptness and audacity; and it had to be made in the spirit in which a man makes a desperate move. Ten minutes more would see the end of the adventure. Ten minutes and he would be either victorious or a dead man.
Every action which he performed from that moment was as orderly and methodical as if he had had time to think it out carefully and to ensure its inevitable success, whereas in reality he was forming a series of separate decisions as he went along and as the tragic circumstances seemed to call for them.
Taking a roundabout way and keeping to the slopes of the mounds formed by the sand thrown up in the works, he reached the hollow communication-road between the quarries and the garrison-camp. On the last of these rounds, his foot struck a block of stone which gave way beneath him. On stooping and groping with his hands, he perceived that this block held quite a heap of sand and pebbles in position behind it.