It seemed to him that there must be some way of getting Marie out if he could only hit upon it.

He turned over in his mind every escape he had ever read of, but in most of these the prisoner had been a man, capable of using tools passed in to him to saw through iron bars, pierce walls, or overcome jailers; some had been saved by female relatives, wives or daughters, who went in and exchanged clothes and places with them, but this was not feasible here.

This was not a prison where relatives could call upon friends, for to be a relative or friend of a prisoner was quite sufficient in the eyes of the terrorists to mark anyone as being an enemy of the republic.
He was suddenly roused from his reverie by a cry, and beneath the dim light of a lantern, suspended over the narrow street, he saw a man feebly defending himself against two others.

He sprang forward just as the man fell, and with his stick struck a sharp blow on the uplifted wrist of one of the assailants, sending the knife he was holding flying through the air.

The other turned upon him, but he drew the pistol which he always carried beneath his clothes, and the two men at once took to their heels.