Meanwhile the black boy was spreading the table with the contents of the basket.
The gendarme laughed. “No, no, we are not apt to let our caged birds fly,” he answered. “I hope, messieurs, you will enjoy your suppers, and I would advise you then to take some sleep to be ready to start early in the morning, as soon as it is decided in what direction you are to go.”
Rayner thanked the gendarme, who, followed by the black boy, went out of the room, bolting and barring the door behind him.
The men now drew their benches to the table, and Rayner and Oliver, taking their places, fell to with the rest, there being no necessity, under such circumstances, for keeping up official ceremony.
Supper was quickly got through, and each man stowed away the remainder of the provisions in his pockets. While they went to work with their knives at the bars, Rayner and Oliver examined the beds. They were thankful to find that the canvas at the bottom was lashed by pieces of tolerably stout rope. These, with the aid of the ticking cut into strips, would form a line of sufficient length and strength to enable them to descend, should they succeed in getting out the bars. This, however, was not easily to be accomplished. When the officers went to the window, they found that Jack and his companions had made little progress. The bars fitted so closely into the holes that there was but a small quantity of lead, and without a hammer and chisel it seemed impossible to make the hole sufficiently large to move the bars so as to allow Brown to exert his strength upon them. If the two centre perpendicular bars could be got out, the lowest horizontal bar might be sent up. This would afford ample room for the stoutest of the party to get through.
“We’ve got out of a French prison before, sir, and we’ll get out now,” said Jack, working away.
“Yes, but we were small boys then, and you, Jack, and I, would find it a hard matter to get through the same sized hole now that we could then,” observed Rayner.
“That’s just it, sir. If two small boys could get out of a French prison, I am thinking that five well-nigh grown men can manage the job. We’ll do it, sir, never fear. If this stone was granite it might puzzle us, but it’s softer than that by a long way, and I have already cut out some of it with my knife, though, to be sure, it does blunt it considerably.”
The progress Jack and his companions made was very small, and it was evident that unless they could work faster they would be unable to remove the bar before daylight. Rayner and Oliver searched round the room for any pieces of iron which might serve the purpose of a chisel. They examined the bedsteads—they were formed entirely of wood. There was, of course, no fireplace, or a poker might have assisted them. They had just returned to the window when their ears caught the sounds of a few low notes from a violin, played almost directly beneath them.
“Why! I do believe that’s the tune Le Duc was playing to us last evening,” exclaimed Jack.