"The difficulty is to keep a grip; but I've been up and down them
before to-night. And it's our only chance. I'll go first, Bunny:
you watch me, and do exactly as I do if I get down all. right."
"But if you don't?"
"If I don't," whispered Raffles, as he wormed through the window
feet foremost, "I'm afraid you'll have to face the music where you
are, and I shall have the best of it down in Acheron!"
And he slid out of reach without another word, leaving me to shudder
alike at his levity and his peril; nor could I follow him very far
by the wan light of the April stars; but I saw his forearms resting
a moment in the spout that ran around the tower, between bricks and
slates, on the level of the floor; and I had another dim glimpse of
him lower still, on the eaves over the very room that we had
ransacked. Thence the conductor ran straight to earth in an angle
of the facade. And since it had borne him thus far without mishap,
I felt that Raffles was as good as down. But I had neither his
muscles nor his nerves, and my head swam as I mounted to the window
and prepared to creep out backward in my turn.
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