I retorted that we had used it to make the ship fast, but he laughed at that.
"We shall return by the drawbridge," says he. "Do you stand sentinel here, and I will get what we want." And with that he was off like a shot, and for some minutes I saw him no more.
The interval was spent in listening to a sound of distant music, which I could not hear very plainly. There were women's voices and the music of fiddles, and it seemed to me that I had heard some of their songs in the casinos of my own Paris. Such a surprise was very welcome and put heart into me. Léon could hardly be in peril while women were singing to him. I told Bardot as much when he returned, and his curiosity concerning the voices was not less than my own.
"Let us have a look at them," says he. And with that he climbed upon my shoulders, and throwing the rope he had brought from the boat deftly about the iron bar of the window he pulled himself up like a monkey, and so gained a foothold on the ledge.
For a long time now he did not utter a word. I thought that I heard him laughing softly, and then, of a sudden, he appeared to grow deeply interested in what was happening in the room.
"What do you see, Bardot?" I asked him, anxiety getting the better of me.
He did not reply, but peered the closer betwixt the bars.
"Oh!" cried I impatiently, "there will be some woman for a certainty."
His answer was to take a pistol from his belt and to look to the priming. I could see him quite clearly, one arm being about the iron bar and the other upon the trigger, which he had cocked.
"Good God!" I cried. "You will bring them out on us."