And in the distance no noise, no sign of help. The cowardly neighbors, shutting themselves in, were crouching in their own houses: nor could one blame unarmed men for not coming to the rescue. A gun is a terrible menace.
Silence reigned in the servants' hall. They too dared not come out. Courage is not for poor men.
In the whole courtyard there were but two men who had stout hearts in their bosoms.
The third courageous heart was that of a girl, who lay wounded.
As he thought of this, Lorand became the victim of an excited passion. He felt his head swimming: he felt that he could not remain there, for sooner or later he must leap down.
Leap down!
An idea occurred to him. A difficult feat, but once thought out, it could be accomplished.
He scrambled up the roof again: cut away one of those long dry ropes which in the garrets of many houses stretch from one rafter to another, tied to one end of it the weight of an old clock lying idle in the attic, and returned again to the roof.
Not far from the house there stood an old sycamore tree: one of its spreading branches bent so near to the house that Lorand could certainly reach it by a cast of the rope. The lead-weighted rope, like a lasso, swung over and around the branch and fastened itself on it firmly.
Lorand looped the other end of the rope round a rafter.