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"If we could get out of his power as we canonville cried

"Ay, if! But it is not every floor has a trap!"

"We could take up a board"

The minister raised his eyebrows

"We could take up a board!" the younger man repeated; and he stepped the

mean chamber from end to end, his eyes on the floor "Or--yes, h the roof?"

And, throwing back his head, he scanned the cobwebbed surface of laths

which rested on the unceiled joists

"Uh the ceiling?"

Tignonville repeated, and in a fit of energy he seized his companion's

shoulder and shook him "Stand on the bed, and you can reach it"

"And the floor which rests on it!"

"Par Dieu, there is no floor! 'Tis a cockloft above us! See there!

And there!" And the young h the laths La Tribe's expression changed He rose slowly

to his feet

"Try again!" he said

Tignonville, his face red, drove the spur again between the laths, and

worked it to and fro until he could pass his fingers into the hole he had

th of one of the laths, and,

passing his arh the hole, moved it this way

and that His eyes, as he looked down at his coleamed with triumph

"Where is your floor now?" he asked