It was a rainy night, and there was a sharp thunder-storm, but they could see very well, while the shadow of the arched window prevented their being seen.

Before midnight they had loosened one bar, and the other was just beginning to give, when some slight noise made them turn their heads, and there was their jailer standing, open-mouthed in the middle of the cell, staring up at them.
It was De Catinat who observed him first, and he sprang down at him in an instant with his bar; but at his movement the man rushed for the door, and drew it after him just as the American's tool whizzed past his ear and down the passage.

As the door slammed, the two comrades looked at each other.

The guardsman shrugged his shoulders and the other whistled.
"It is scarce worth while to go on," said De Catinat.
"We may as well be doing that as anything else.

If my picker had been an inch lower I'd have had him.