d the woman of the
cabaret to show him a room; she showed him one or two, which he refused,
as not sufficiently safe for the prisoner. The woman laughed at the
idea, observing, "What had he to fear from a _pauvre enfant_ like me?"

"Yet this _pauvre enfant_ escaped from Givet," replied O'Brien; "these
Englishmen are devils from their birth." The last room showed to O'Brien
suited him, and he chose it--the woman not presuming to contradict a
gendarme. As soon as they came down again, O'Brien ordered me to bed,
and went up-stairs with me. He bolted the door, and pulling me to the
large chimney, we put our heads up, and whispered, that our conversation
should not be heard. "This man is not to be trusted," said O'Brien, "and
we must give him the slip. I know my way out of the inn, and we must
return the way we came, and then strike off in another direction."

"But will he permit us?"

"Not if he can help it; but I shall soon find out his manoeuvres."

O'Brien then went and stopped the key-hole, by hanging his handkerchief
across it, and stripping himself of his gendarme uniform, put on his own
clothes; then he stuffed the blankets and pillow into the gendarme's
dress, and laid it down on the outside of the bed, as if it were a man
sleeping in his clothes--indeed, it was an admirable deception. He laid
his musket by the side of the image, and then did the same to my bed,
making it appear as if there was a person asleep in it, of my size, and
putting my cap on the pillow. "Now, Peter, we'll see if he is watching
us. He will wait till he thinks we are asleep." The light still remained
in the room, and about an hour afterwards we heard a noise of one
treading on the stairs, upon which, as agreed, we crept under the bed.
The latch of our door was tried, and finding it open, which he did not
expect, the gendarme entered, and looking at both beds, went away.
"Now," said I, after the gendarme had gone down-stairs, "O'Brien, ought
we not to escape?"

"I've been thinking of it, Peter, and I have come to a resolution that
we can manage it better. He is certain to come again in an hour or two.
It is only eleven. Now I'll play him a trick." O'Brien then took one of
the blankets, make it fast to the window, which he left wide open, and
at the same time disarranged the images he had made up, so as to let the
gendarme perceive that they were counterfeit. We again crept under the
bed, and as O'Brien foretold, in about an hour more the g