'What will you do with it?' he asked soberly. He was one of those even-tempered men to whom excitement, irritation, fear, are all foreign.
'Make a loop and throw it over the little pinnacle on the top of yonder dormer,' I answered briefly, 'and use it for a hand-rail.'
'Can you throw it over?'
'I think so.'
'The pinnacle will hold?'
'I hope so.'
He shrugged his shoulders, and stood for a moment staring at me as I unwound the rope and formed a noose. At length: 'But the noise, my friend?' he said. 'If you miss the first time, and the second, the rope falling and sliding over the tiles will give the alarm.'
'Two cats ran along the ridge a while ago,' I answered. 'Once, and, perhaps, twice, the noise will be set down to them. The third time I must succeed.'
I thought it likely that he would forbid the attempt; but he did not. On the contrary, he silently took hold of my belt, that I might lean out the farther and use my hands with greater freedom. Against the window I placed the bundle of pallets; setting one foot on them and the other heel on the pipe outside, I found I could whirl the loop with some chance of success.
Still, it was an anxious moment. As I craned over the dark street and, poising myself, fixed my eyes on the black, slender spirelet which surmounted the neighbouring window, I felt a shudder more than once run through me. I shrank from looking down. At last I threw: the rope fell short. Luckily it dropped clear of the window, and came home again against the wall below me, and so made no noise. The second time I threw with better heart; but I had the same fortune, except that I nearly overbalanced myself, and, for a moment, shut my eyes in terror. The third time, letting out a little more rope, I struck the pinnacle, but below the knob. The rope fell on the tiles, and slid down them with some noise, and for a full minute I stood motionless, half inside the room and half outside, expecting each instant to see a head thrust out of the other window. But no one appeared, no one spoke, though the light was still obscured at intervals; and presently I took courage to make a fourth attempt. I flung, and this time the rope fell with a dull thud on the tiles, and stopped there: the noose was round the pinnacle.