e working out of the gruesome melodrama, groaned and
hooted.

Meanwhile Mattingley stood as still as ever he had stood by his bahue in
the Vier Marchi, watching--waiting.

The Vicomte conferred nervously with the jurats for a moment, and then
turned to the guard.

"Take the prisoner to the Vier Prison," he said. Mattingley had been
slowly solving the problem of his salvation. His eye, like a gimlet,
had screwed its way through Ranulph's words into what lay behind, and
at last he understood the whole beautiful scheme. It pleased him:
Carterette had been worthy of herself, and of him. Ranulph had played
his game well too. He only failed to do justice to the poor beganne,
Dormy Jamais. But then the virtue of fools is its own reward. As the
procession started back with the Undertaker's Apprentice now following
after Mattingley, not going before, Mattingley turned to him, and with a
smile of malice said:

"Ch'est tres ship-shape, Maitre-eh!" and he jerked his head back towards
the inadequate rope.

He was not greatly troubled about the rest of this grisly farce. He was
now ready for breakfast, and his appetite grew as he heard how the crowd
hooted and snarled yah! at the Undertaker's Apprentice. He was quite
easy about the future. What had been so well done thus far could not
fail in the end.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Events proved Mattingley right. Three days after, it was announced that
he had broken prison. It is probable that the fury of the Royal Court at
the news was not quite sincere, for it was notable that the night of
his evasion, suave and uncrestfallen, they dined in state at the Tres
Pigeons. The escape gave them happy issue from a quandary.

The Vicomte officially explained that Mattingley had got out by the
dungeon window. People came to see the window, and there, ba su, the
bars were gone! But that did not prove the case, and the mystery was
deepened by the fact that Jean Touzel, whose head was too small for
Elie's hat, could not get that same head through the dungeon window.
Having proved so much, Jean left the mystery there, and returned to his
Hardi Biaou.

This happened on the morning after the dark night when Mattingley,
Carterette, and Alixandre hurried from the Vier Prison, through the Rue
des Sablons to the sea, and there boarded Ranulph's boat, wherein was
Olivier Delagarde the traitor.

Accompanying Carterette to the shore was a little figure that moved
along beside them like a shadow, a l