“But what noise was that,” said Manfred, “which I heard, as I entered the cloister?”
“A door clapped,” said the peasant; “I heard it as well as you.”
“What door?” said Manfred hastily.
“I am not acquainted with your castle,” said the peasant: “this is the first time I ever entered it; and this vault the only part of it within which I ever was.”
“But I tell thee,” said Manfred, wishing to find out if the youth had discovered the trap-door, “it was this way I heard the noise; my servants heard it too.”
“My lord,” interrupted one of them officiously, “to be sure it was the trap-door, and he was going to make his escape.”
“Peace! blockhead,” said the prince angrily; “if he was going to escape, how should he come on this side? I will know from his own mouth what noise it was I heard. Tell me truly, thy life depends on thy veracity.”
“My veracity is dearer to me than my life,” said the peasant; “nor would I purchase the one by forfeiting the other.”
“Indeed, young philosopher!” said Manfred, contemptuously; “tell me, then, what was that noise I heard?”
“Ask me, what I can answer,” said he, “and put me to death instantly, if I tell you a lie.”
Manfred, growing impatient at the steady valour and indifference of the youth, cried, “Well, then, thou man of truth! answer; was it the fall of the trap-door that I heard?”
“It was,” said the youth.
“It was!” said the prince; “and how didst thou come to know there was a trap-door here?”
“I saw the plate of brass by a gleam of moonshine,” replied he.
“But what told thee it was a lock?” said Manfred; “how didst thou discover the secret of opening it?”
“Providence, that delivered me from the helmet, was able to direct me to the spring of a lock,” said he.
“Providence should have gone a little farther, and have placed thee out of the reach of my resentment,” said Manfred: “when Providence had taught thee to open the lock, it abandoned thee for a fool, who did not know how to make use of its favours. Why didst thou not pursue the path pointed out for thy escape? Why didst thou shut the trap-door before thou hadst descended the steps?”
“I might ask you, my lord,” said the peasant, “how I, totally unacquainted with your castle, was to know that those steps led to any outlet? but I scorn to evade your questions. Wherever those steps led to, perhaps, I should have explored the way. I could not be in a worse situation than I was. But the truth is, I let the trap-door fall: your immediate arrival followed. I had given the alarm—what imported it to me whether I was seized a minute sooner or a minute later?”
“Thou art a resolute villain for thy years,” said Manfred; “yet, on reflection, I suspect thou dost but trifle with me: thou hast not yet told me how thou didst open the lock.”
“That I will show you, my lord,” said the peasant; and, taking up a fragment of stone that had fallen from above, he laid himself on the trap-door, and began to beat on the piece of brass that covered it; meaning to gain time for the escape of the princess. This presence of mind, joined to the frankness of the youth,