"Hold your tongue," said Lupin.

"But they've seen us, governor. There, they're knocking."

"Hold your tongue," Lupin repeated. "Not a word. Not a movement."

He himself remained unperturbed, with an utterly calm face and the
pensive attitude of one who has all the time that he needs to examine a
delicate situation from every point of view. He had reached one of those
minutes which he called the "superior moments of existence," those which
alone give a value and a price to life. On such occasions, however
threatening the danger, he always began by counting to himself, slowly
--"One... Two... Three... Four.... Five... Six"--until the
beating of his heart became normal and regular. Then and not till then,
he reflected, but with what intensity, with what perspicacity, with what
a profound intuition of possibilities! All the factors of the problem
were present in his mind. He foresaw everything. He admitted everything.
And he took his resolution in all logic and in all certainty.

After thirty or forty seconds, while the men outside were banging at the
doors and picking the locks, he said to his companion:

"Follow me."

Returning to the dining-room, he softly opened the sash and drew the
Venetian blinds of a window in the side-wall. People were coming and
going, rendering flight out of the question.

Thereupon he began to shout with all his might, in a breathless voice: