laughter of her maid? But while I paused, a gentle snore crept out into the frost and soon was mingling with my ears. The coffee had performed. In an instant what a lion I became! How promptly I stepped up to the sentry's side and took that bayonet from him, for I could not be myself so long as that blade menaced me. I ran across the yard and cast it in an ashpit—'twas the utmost indignity I could bestow upon that weapon—and counted the feat a triumph for wit over insolence and power. Mr. Sentry had been drugged so heavily and thoroughly that he was now sleeping more deeply than the earth, as I doubt whether even morning would have waked him. The posture of his body, though, was most unfriendly to the scheme I had prepared. His head was jammed in the top corner against one door post, whilst his heels resided in the bottom corner of the other. The misfortune was that his ribs were in such a situation that they covered up the keyhole. Now unless I could obtain a fair access to that, my labours were in vain. But when engaged on a dangerous escapade, 'tis a sterile mind that lacks for an expedient. Therefore I gave back a yard or two into the stable's shadow, and looking up, saw precisely what I had hoped to find. Our stables I had remembered were of two storeys, the second chamber being an open hayloft, which was only covered by the roof, the sides being composed of rails alone, and set wide enough apart for persons of an ordinary stature to squeeze through with ease. How to reach it was the problem, as
