It won't take us long to have it out." He set to work furiously, trying to deepen the groove in the stone, through which he hoped to drag the staple.

Suddenly he ceased, and strained his ears.
"By thunder!" said he, "there's some one working on the other side." They both stood listening.

There were the thud of hammers, the rasping of a saw, and the clatter of wood from the other side of the wall.
"What can they be doing ?" "I can't think." "Can you see them ?" "They are too near the wall." "I think I can manage," said De Catinat.

"I am slighter than you." He pushed his head and neck and half of one shoulder through the gap between the bars, and there he remained until his friend thought that perhaps he had stuck, and pulled at his legs to extricate him.
He writhed back, however, without any difficulty.
"They are building something," he whispered.
"Building!" "Yes; there are four of them, with a lantern." "What can they be building, then ?" "It's a shed, I think.

I can see four sockets in the ground, and they are fixing four uprights into them." "Well, we can't get away as long as there are four men just under our window." "Impossible." "But we may as well finish our work, for all that." The gentle scrapings of his iron were drowned amid the noise which swelled ever louder from without.