Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of
Westphalia! Still, as I looked on it, I could
not move; I could hardly breathe; but I
began to recover the power of thinking; and,
in a moment, I discovered the murderous
conspiracy framed against me, in all its horror.

Mv cup of coffee had been drugged, and
drugged too strongly. I had been saved from
being smothered, by having taking an overdose
of some narcotic. How I had chafed
and fretted at the fever-fit which had
preserved my life by keeping me awake! How
recklessly I had confided myself to the two
wretches who had led me into this room,
determined, for the sake of my winnings, to
kill me in my sleep, by the surest and most
horrible contrivance for secretly accomplishing
my destruction! How many men, winners
like me, had slept, as I had proposed to sleep,
in that bed; and never been seen or heard
of more! I shuddered as I thought of it.

But, erelong, all thought was again
suspended by the sight of the murderous canopy
moving once more. After it had remained
on the bed—as nearly as I could guess—about
ten minutes, it began to move up again. The
villains, who worked it from above, evidently
believed that their purpose was now
accomplished. Slowly and silently, as it had
descended, that horrible bed-top rose towards its
former place. When it reached the upper
extremities of the four posts, it reached the
ceiling too. Neither hole nor screw could be
seen—the bed became, in appearance, an ordinary
bed again, the canopy, an ordinary
canopy, even to the most suspicious eyes.

Now, for the first time, I was able to move,
to rise from my chair, to consider of how I
should escape. If I betrayed, by the smallest
noise, that the attempt to suffocate me had
failed, I was certain to be murdered. Had I
made any noise already ? I listened intently,
looking towards the door. No! no footsteps
in the passage outside; no sound of a tread,
light or heavy, in the room above—absolute
silence everywhere. Besides locking and
bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden
chest against it, which I had found under the
bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran
cold, as I thought what its contents might
be!) without making some disturbance, was
impossible; and, moreover, to think of
escaping through the house, now barred-up for
the night, was sheer insanity. Only one
chance was left me—the window. I stole to
it on tiptoe.

My bedroom was on the first floor,
above an entresol, and looked into the
back street, which you have sketched in
your view. I raised my hand to open the
window, knowing that on that action hung,
by the merest hair's-breadth, my chance
of safety. They keep vigilant watch in a
House of Murder—if any part of the frame
cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was, perhaps,
a lost man! It must have occupied me at
least five minutes, reckoning by time—five
hours, reckoning by suspense—to open that
window. I succeeded in doing it silently, in
doing it with all the dexterity of a house-
breaker: and then looked down into the
street. To leap the distance beneath me,
would be almost certain destruction! Next, I
looked round at the sides of the house. Down
the left side, ran the thick water-pipe which
you have drawn—it passed close by the outer
edge of the window. The moment I saw the
pipe, I knew I was saved; my breath came
and went freely for the first time since I had
seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon
me!

To some men, the means of escape which I
had discovered might have seemed difficult
and dangerous enough—to me, the prospect
of slipping down the pipe into the street did
not suggest even a thought of peril. I had
always been accustomed, by the practice of
gymnastics, to keep up my schoolboy powers
as a daring and expert climber; and knew
that my head, hands, and feet would serve me
faithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent.
I had already got one leg over the window-
sill, when I remembered the handkerchief,
filled with money, under my pillow. I could
well have afforded to leave it behind me; but
I was revengefully determined that the
miscreants of the gambling-house should miss
their plunder as well as their victim. So I
went back to the bed, and tied the heavy
handkerchief at my back by my cravat. Just
as I had made it tight, and fixed it in a
comfortable place, I thought I heard a sound of
breathing outside the door. The chill feeling
of horror ran through me again as I listened.
No! dead silence still in the passage—I had
only heard the night air blowing softly into
the room. The next moment I was on the
window-sill—and the next, I had a firm grip
on the water-pipe with my hands and knees.

I slid down into the street easily and
quietly, as I thought I should, and immediately
set off, at the top of my speed, to a
branch " Prefecture" of Police, which I knew
was situated in the immediate neighbourhood.
A " Sub-Prefect " and several picked men
among his subordinates, happened to be up,
maturing, I believe, some scheme for
discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious
murder, which all Paris was talking of just
then. "When I began my story, in a breathless
hurry and in very bad French, I could
see that the Sub-Prefect suspected me of
being a drunken Englishman, who had robbed
somebody, but he soon altered his opinion, as
I went on; and before I had anything like
concluded, he shoved all the papers before
him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied
me with another (for I was bare-headed),
ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert
followers to get ready all sorts of tools for
breaking open doors and ripping-up brick-
flooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly
and familiar manner possible, to lead me with
him out of the house. I will venture to say,