Gently I drew it tight, and then, letting it hang, I slipped back into the room, where we had before taken the precaution to put out the light. Herr Krapp asked me in a whisper if the rope was fast.
'Yes,' I said. 'I must secure this end to something.'
He passed it round the hinge of the left-hand shutter and made it safe. Then for a moment we stood together in the darkness.
'All right?' he said.
'All right,' I answered hoarsely.
The next moment the thing was done. I was outside, the rope in my hands, my feet on the bending pipe, the cool night air round my temples--below me, sheer giddiness, dancing lights, and blackness. For the moment I tottered. I balanced myself where I stood, and clung to the rope, shutting my eyes. If the pinnacle had given way then, I must have fallen like a plummet and been killed. One crash against the wall below, one grip at the rope as it tore its way through my fingers--and an end!
But the pinnacle held, and in a few seconds I gained wit and courage. One step, then another, and then a third, taken warily, along the pipe, as I have seen rope-walkers take them at Heritzburg fair, and I was almost within reach of my goal. Two more, and, stooping, I could touch, with my right hand, the tiles of the little gable, while my left, raised above my head, still clutched the rope.
Then came an anxious moment. I had to pass under the rope, which was between me and the street, and between me and the window also--the window, my goal. I did it; but in my new position I found a new difficulty, and a grim one, confronting me. Standing outside the rope now, with my right hand clinging to it, I could not, with all my stretching, reach with my other hand any part of the window, or anything of which I could get a firm grip. The smooth tiles and crumbling mortar of the little gable gave no hold, while the rope, my grip on which I dared not for my life relax, prevented me stooping sufficiently to reach the sill or the window-case.
It was a horrible position. I stood still, sweating, trembling, and felt the wooden pipe bend and yield under me. Behind me, the depth, the street, yawned for me; before me, the black roof, shutting off the sky. My head reeled, my fingers closed on the ropes like claws; for a second I shut my eyes, and thought I was falling. In that moment I forgot Marie--I forgot everything, except the pavement below, the cruel stones, the depth; I would have given all, coward that I was, to be back in Herr Krapp's room.
Then the fit passed, and I stood, thinking. To take my hand from the rope would be to fall--to die. But could I lower the rope so that, still holding it, I could reach the sill, or the hinges, or some part of the window-case that would furnish a grip? I could think of only one way, and that a dangerous one; but I had no choice, nor any time to lose, if I would keep my head. I drew out my knife, and, leaning forward on the rope, with one knee on the tiles, I began to sever the cord as far away to my right as I could reach. This was to cut off my retreat--my connection with the window I had left; but I dared not let myself think much of that or of anything. I hacked away in a frenzy, and in a twinkling the rope flew apart, and I slipped forward on the tiles, clutching the piece that remained to me in a grasp of iron.