had at some risk lengthened our rope, and made a double line of
it, so that it ran round a hinge of the shutter; and when he
stood beside us, he took it by one end and disengaged it. Good,
clever Marie!

"Bravo!" I said softly, clapping him on the back. "Now they
will not know which way the birds have flown!"

So there we all were, one of us, I confess, trembling. We slid
easily enough along the beam to the opposite house. But once
there in a row one behind the other with our faces to the wall,
and the night air blowing slantwise--well I am nervous on a
height and I gasped. The window was a good six feet above the
beam, The casement--it was unglazed--was open, veiled by a thin
curtain, and alas! protected by three horizontal bars--stout
bars they looked.

Yet we were bound to get up, and to get in; and I was preparing
to rise to my feet on the giddy bridge as gingerly as I could,
when Marie crawled quickly over us, and swung himself up to the
narrow sill, much as I should mount a horse on the level. He
held out his foot to me, and making an effort I reached the same
dizzy perch. Croisette for the time remained below.

A narrow window-ledge sixty feet above the pavement, and three
bars to cling to! I cowered to my holdfasts, envying even
Croisette. My legs dangled airily, and the black chasm of the
street seemed to yawn for me. For a moment I turned sick. I
recovered from that to feel desperate. I remembered that go
forward we must, bars or no bars. We could not regain our old