Yet I had always rather be doing something than
doing nothing, so I bent all my attention and all my energies
upon the wooden wall. Two planks were badly joined, and so loose
that I was certain I could easily detach them. I searched about
for some tool, and I found one in the leg of a small bed which
stood in the corner. I forced the end of this into the chink of
the planks, and I was about to twist them outward when the sound
of rapid footsteps caused me to pause and to listen.
I wish I could forget what I heard. Many a hundred men have I
seen die in battle, and I have slain more myself than I care to
think of, but all that was fair fight and the duty of a soldier.
It was a very different matter to listen to a murder in this den
of assassins. They were pushing someone along the passage,
someone who resisted and who clung to my door as he passed. They
must have taken him into the third cell, the one which was
farthest from me. "Help! Help!" cried a voice, and then I heard
a blow and a scream.
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