Punchinello saw that he was a prisoner, and therefore began at once to plan how to escape. The Captain, whose name was Ronflard, departed that very evening, thus giving him an opportunity too good to be lost.
The next day he said, laughing: "Comrades, you lead a jolly life down here, but I confess that I can't help regretting the delightful amusement that always enchanted the Neapolitan Court after dinner."
"What was it?" cried the whole band at once.
"It consists," said Punchinello, "in descending a steep hill in little sledges, going one after the other, and running on rails. Nothing would be easier than to arrange the same sort of thing on the slope that I descended yesterday evening to get here."
"That is the thing to suit us exactly," cried the brigands on all sides. "Friends, to work at once and build some sledges!"
Soon all was ready. Each of the twenty brigands got into his own sledge upon the platform that was just at the top of the staircase underneath the trap-door.
Punchinello remained at the bottom of the staircase. The brigands in their twenty sledges set off, descending the slope with terrible rapidity; but, lo and behold! as soon as they were going at full speed, Punchinello drew a huge skewer, about thirty feet long, from behind his back, and held the point toward the tops of the sledges, which were descending with immense rapidity. Horror was depicted on the faces of the brigands. Their cries were piteous. However, whether they would or no, they were obliged to fall upon the skewer. They went rolling down zigzag; the first brigand arrived like lightning, and thirty feet of steel went through his body. The others came rolling down, and were impaled, one after the other—a horrible death, but a fitting end to their guilty lives.
Punchinello then put the skewer, with his extraordinary game, on a cart, harnessed six horses to it, and arrived in less than two hours at the town of Chartres. He immediately inquired the address of the magistrate.