"Here am I to accompany you wherever you wish."
The boy straightened himself with an aggressive air, moving one hand to his belt to convince himself that his knife had not disappeared, but he was immediately undeceived by Febrer's mocking expression of gratitude.
"Laugh, Don Jaime; make fun of me if you will; but I can be of some use to you. See how I warn you of danger! You must be on your guard. The Ironworker planned that singing with evil intent."
He glanced about like a chieftain preparing for a long siege. His eyes encountered the gun hanging on the wall among the decorations of shells. Very good; both barrels must be loaded with ball, and on top of this a good handful of lead slugs or coarse bird-shot. It would be no more than prudent. Thus his glorious grandfather had done. Seeing Jaime's revolver lying on the table, he frowned.
"Very bad! Small arms should be worn on one's person at all hours. I sleep with my knife on my breast. What if an enemy should rush in suddenly without giving a man time to look for his weapon?"
The tower, which, in former centuries, had been the scene of executions and battles between pirates, a stone vault suggestive of tragedies, the walls covered by gleaming whitewash, then claimed the boy's attention.
He cautiously made his way to the door as if an enemy were lying in wait for him at the foot of the stairway, and concealing his body behind the thick wall, he advanced, nothing but an eye and part of his forehead being visible. Then he shook his head with despair. If one looked out at night, even with these precautions, the enemy, lying in ambush below, could see him, could aim at him with the greatest facility, resting his arms on a branch or on a stone with no fear of missing him. It would be even worse to step outside the door and venture to go down. No matter how dark the night, the enemy could point his gun at a cluster of leaves, at a star on the horizon, at anything standing out conspicuously in the dusk near the stairway, and when a dark form should pass before it, momentarily obscuring the object sighted at—bang! It was sure game! He had heard grave men tell of having spent whole months crouching behind a hillock or a tree trunk, the butt-end of a musket close to the cheek and the eyes fixed on the end of the barrel, from sunset till daybreak, lying in wait for some old-time enemy.
No, the Little Chaplain did not like this door with its stairway in the open. He must find another exit, and he inspected the window, opened it, and looked out. With simian agility, laughing with joy at his discovery, he sprang over the embrasure and disappeared, seeking with feet and hands the irregularities of the rubble-work, the deep, stair-like sockets left by the stones when they had fallen loose from the mortar. Febrer looked out and saw him picking up his hat and waving it with a triumphant expression. Then the boy ran around the base of the tower, and soon his steps resounded, trotting noisily up the wooden stairs.
"That's easy enough!" he shouted, as he entered the room, red with excitement over his discovery. "That's a stairway fit for a gentleman!"
Realizing the importance of his discovery, he assumed a grand air of mystery. This must be kept between them—not a word to anyone. It was a precious means of exit, the secret of which must be jealously guarded.