In the first shock of the discovery, hearing the bars drop home,
we stood gaping, and wondering what it meant. Then Maignan, with
an oath, sprang to the door and tried it--fruitlessly.
I joined him more at my leisure, and raising my voice, asked
angrily what this folly meant. "Open the door there! Do you
hear, landlord?" I cried.
No one moved, though Maignan continued to rattle the door
furiously.
"Do you hear?" I repeated, between anger and amazement at the
fix in which we had placed ourselves. "Open!"
But, although the murmur of voices outside the door grew louder,
no one answered, and I had time to take in the full absurdity of
the position; to measure the height; of the windows with my eye
and plumb the dark shadows under the rafters, where the feebler
rays of our candle lost themselves; to appreciate, in a word, the
extent of our predicament. Maignan was furious, La Trape
vicious, while my own equanimity scarcely supported me against
the thought that we should probably be where we were until the
arrival of my people, whom I had directed my wife to send to Le
Mesnil at noon next day.
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