my head.'

From where I was now standing there was occasionally visible, as
the fog lightened, a lamp in one of the barrack windows, which gave
me a measure of the height he had to fall and the horrid force that
he must strike me with. What was yet worse, we had agreed to do
without signals: every so many minutes by Laclas' watch another
man was to be started from the battlements. Now, I had seemed to
myself to be about half an hour in my descent, and it seemed near
as long again that I waited, straining on the rope for my next
comrade to begin. I began to be afraid that our conspiracy was
out, that my friends were all secured, and that I should pass the
remainder of the night, and be discovered in the morning, vainly
clinging to the rope's end like a hooked fish upon an angle. I
could not refrain, at this ridiculous image, from a chuckle of
laughter. And the next moment I knew, by the jerking of the rope,
that my friend had crawled out of the tunnel and was fairly
launched on his descent. It appears it was the sailor who had
insisted on succeeding me: as soon as my continued silence had
assured him the rope was long enough, Gautier, for that was his
name, had forgot his former arguments, and shown himself so
extremely forward, that Laclas had given way. It was like the
fellow, who had no harm in him beyond an instinctive selfishness.
But he was like to have paid pretty dearly for the privilege. Do
as I would, I could not keep the rope as I could have wished it;
and he ended at last by falling on me from a height of several
yards, so that we both rolled together on the ground. As soon as
he could breathe he cursed me beyond belief, wept over his finger,
which he had broken, and cursed me again. I bade him be still and
think shame of himself to be so great a cry-baby. Did he not hear