At last, when the fire was blazing
at its brightest, he rose suddenly and walked slowly to a beam from which
an ox riem hung. Loosening it, he ran a noose in one end and then doubled
it round his arm.
"Mine, mine! I have a right," he muttered; and then something louder, "if
I fall and am killed, so much the better!"
He opened the door and went out into the starlight.
He walked with his eyes bent upon the ground, but overhead it was one of
those brilliant southern nights when every space so small that your hand
might cover it shows fifty cold white points, and the Milky-Way is a belt
of sharp frosted silver. He passed the door where Bonaparte lay dreaming
of Trana and her wealth, and he mounted the ladder steps. From those he
clambered with some difficulty on to the roof of the house. It was of old
rotten thatch with a ridge of white plaster, and it crumbled away under his
feet at every step. He trod as heavily as he could. So much the better if
he fell.
He knelt down when he got to the far gable, and began to fasten his riem to
the crumbling bricks. Below was the little window of the loft. With one
end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist, how
easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the broken panes,
and to go in, and to fill his arms with books, and to clamber up again!
They had burnt one book--he would have twenty.
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