Butts of muskets were grounded on the pavement. I looked out of my window and saw three soldiers in full uniform with grounded arms in front of my door.
I said to myself in my terror: "Can it be that that scoundrel of a Rap has had any bones broken?"
And here is the strange peculiarity of the human mind: I, who the night before had wanted to cut my own throat, shook from head to foot, thinking that I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.
The stairway was filled with confused noises. It was an ascending flood of heavy footsteps, clanking arms, and short syllables.
Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was shut.
Then there was a general clamour.
"In the name of the law—open!"
I arose, trembling and weak in the knees.
"Open!" the same voice repeated.
I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had hardly put my head out of the little snuff-box window, when I drew back, seized with vertigo. I saw in a flash all the windows below with their shining panes, their flower-pots, their bird-cages, and their gratings. Lower, the balcony; still lower, the street-lamp; still lower again, the sign of the "Red Cask" framed in iron-work; and, finally, three glittering bayonets, only awaiting my fall to run me through the body from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head. On the roof of the opposite house a tortoise-shell cat was crouching behind a chimney, watching a band of sparrows fighting and scolding in the gutter.