man who had a pistol fired it off. At least, that appeared to be the case, judging by the number of shots.

As they aimed at the corner where they had seen us, however, nothing resulted except a waste of ammunition.

The darkness was all in my favour. I knew that any man who touched me in the dark must be an enemy; while they could not tell, when they ran against any one, whether it was friend or foe. More than one struggle among them told me this, and showed me further what was of at least equal importance—that they were afraid to advance farther into the room.

When a lull came in the racket, therefore, I adopted another ruse. I crept toward the corner where they[29] had seen us, and, stamping heavily, cried out that I would shoot the first man I touched.

[29]

Another volley of shots followed; but I was back out of range again, and soon had very welcome proof that the trick was successful. Each man appeared to mistake his neighbour for me, and some of them were pretty roughly handled by their friends before the blunders were discovered.

Some one shouted for a light; and in the lull that succeeded we had a great stroke of luck. The wounded man, who lay in a corner near to them, began to move his feet restlessly, and they immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was going to attack them from there.

I backed this idea promptly. Letting out a fierce yell of rage, I fired a shot at random. This filled to overflowing the cup of their cowardice, and in another moment they had bolted like rabbits out of the room and locked the door again.

I lost no time in relighting the candles, and set to work to pile the furniture against the door to prevent them taking us again by surprise, and to give me time to see if we couldn’t get away by the window.

Opening it as quietly as possible I had a good look at the bars, and saw that it would be possible to force them sufficiently apart with wedges for us to squeeze through.

“We can reach the street this way, madame?” I asked my companion, who was now very badly scared.

“It is useless,” she replied despairingly.

“Not so useless as stopping here. We can’t expect such luck a second time as we have just had.” I spoke sharply, wishing to rouse her.

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