"Geneva!"
"I know you!" The man was one of the guard who, in the alarm, had escaped into the stairway. "I know you! You live in the Corraterie!"
Claude wasted not a second. "Up!" he cried. "We can hold the roof! Up, man, for your life! For your life! It is our only chance!"
With the fear of death upon him, the other needed no second telling. He turned, and groped upwards in haste; and Claude followed, treading on his heels; nor a moment too soon. While they were still within the staircase, which their elbows rubbed on either side, they heard the enemy swarm into the room below. Cries of triumph, of "Savoy! Savoy!" of "Ville gagnée! gagnée!" hummed dully up to them, and proclaimed the narrowness of their escape. Then the night air met their faces, they bent their heads and passed out upon the leads; they had above them the stars, and below them all the world of night, with its tramp of hidden feet, its swaying lights so tiny and distant, and here and there its cry of "Savoy! Savoy!" that showed that the enemy, relying on their capture of the Porte Neuve, were casting off disguise.
Claude heard and saw all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised it again for practice.
The soldier, familiar with the tower, should have been able to go to the chains at once. But though he had struggled for his life and was ready to struggle for it again, he had not recovered his nerve, and he shrank from leaving the stairs, in holding which their one chance consisted. He muttered, however, that the winch was on such and such a side, and, with his head in the stairway, indicated the direction with his hand. Claude groped his way to the spot, his breath coming fast; fortunately he laid his hand almost at once on the chains and felt for the spike, which he knew he must draw or knock out. That done, the winch would fly round, and the huge machine fall by its own weight.
On a sudden, "They are coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the side of the stairs up which the foe was climbing!
The hair rose on Claude's head, but he set his teeth; though the man died, though he died, the portcullis must fall! More than his own life, more than the lives of both of them, more than lives a hundred or a thousand hung on that bolt; the fate of millions yet unborn, the freedom and the future of a country hung on that bolt which would not give way—though now he had found it and was hammering it. Grinding his teeth, the sweat on his brow, he beat on it with the pike, struck the iron with the strength of despair, stooped to see what was amiss—still with the frenzied prayers of the other in his ears—saw it, and struck again and again—and again!
Whirr! The winch flew round, barely missing his head. With a harsh, grinding sound that rose with incredible swiftness to a scream, piercing the night, the ponderous grating slid down, crashed home and barred all entrance—closed the Porte Neuve. It did more, though Claude did not know it. It cut off the engineer from the outer gate, of which the keys were at the Town Hall, and against which in another minute, another sixty seconds, he had set his petard. That set and exploded, Geneva had lain open to its enemies. As it was, so small was the margin, so fatally accurate the closing, that when the day rose, it disclosed a portent. When the victors came to examine the spot they found beneath the portcullis the mangled form of one of the engineers, and beside him lay his petard.