"Is de ting sauf?"
"Yes, yes," I whispered in reply.
And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again
committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited,
trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time
to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops
would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides
the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out
again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by
one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in
London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not
get loose.
As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope
jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I
ejaculated, quite loudly--
"Oh, Achille!"
"Eh, yais, oui," he exclaimed. "I 'ave put in mine's foot."
"In what--in what, mon cher?" I whispered.
"Oh," he gasped, in a thick voice, "mais je suis giddy. I 'ave puts my
foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back."
"Oh, pray come in!" cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed
quite horrified--"pray come in and shut the window. Let's go away."
"Oh, nonsense," I said, "he will be hung: he will die! His head is
hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped.
Whatever shall we do?"
"Why don't you cut the rope?" said Patty; but of course no one took any
notice of her.
"Let's unhook the things," whispered Clara, "and then drop him down into
the laurustinus."
"Oh, how can you be so stupid!" I panted. "It would kill him: he's
right above the first floor window-sill."
"Well, but we can't shut the window with those things there," said
Clara; "and it will not do to be found out."
I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was
being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I
kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and
indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to
double himself up and get his hands to the rope.
I never, I'm sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those
few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him;
for, in addition to the horror, there was the pricking of my conscience,
as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I
should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that
last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful
drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from
running any more risks on my behalf.
I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him,
or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but
she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the
gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron
hooks fell jingling upon the floor.
There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy
body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep
groan--a French groan--which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the
rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the
hooks.
We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage
enough to lean out, and whisper loudly--
"Achille! mon ami Achille!" when, as if in answer, came a most doleful
"H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!" which made one's very blood run cold.
"That's only an owl," said Clara, the next minute.
"A howl!" said Patty; "that it wasn't, it was a groan, just the same as
the pigs give when they're dying in our slaughter-house at home."
I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying
to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the
right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window,
I felt sure, was the lady principal's; so, recollecting the night of the
alarm from Clara's basin--agonised though I was--I felt obliged to close
ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back
to our room--my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in
such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise
an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps--ay, perhaps!--poor fellow, he
was not hurt, after all.
It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the
door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we
heard the Fraulein spring out of bed with a regular bump upon the floor.
We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down,
we heard the Fraulein's door open, and then there were voices talking
and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we
thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss
Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with--
"Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories."
So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my
horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of
the wind among the branches was him stealing--no, I won't say stealing,
it looks so bad--hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraulein come in, and
her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I
felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared
not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs
Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she
did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the
alarm bell.
"What are you sobbing for?" said Clara, all at once.
"Oh, I know he's killed," I said.
"Pooh, nonsense," she replied, in her unfeeling way, "he only went plop
among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their
feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless
he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit."
"Then you don't think he is killed, dear?" I said, seeking for comfort,
alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I'm sorry to say.
"Not I," said Clara; "it was not far enough to fall."
"I sha'n't go no more," drawled Patty; "it ain't half such fun as I
thought it was. Why didn't he come right up?"
"Don't be such a goose!" cried Clara to the noodle. "Why, didn't he get
his leg caught, and then didn't the rope give way?"
"I'm sure I dunno," said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the
trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep.