Jules Verne

“ Above the abyss rises one of the side walls of the donjon, pierced with a few windows giving light to the cells on the different floors. Were a prisoner to lean out of one of these openings he would recoil with terror, lest vertigo drag him into the void below. And if he fell, what would be his fate? His body would be dashed to pieces on the rocks at the bottom, or it would be carried away by the torrent whose current during flood is irresistible.
The abyss is the Brico, as it is called in the district. Through it runs a river known as the Foiba. ”

“ If we possessed a rope, we should not hesitate to suspend ourselves outside the window, so that we might slip down it to the ground. Now, this cable is better than a rope, because its rigidity will render its descent much easier. Like all lightning conductors, there is no doubt but that it is fastened to the wall with staples. These staples will be fixed points, on which our feet may find a rest. There is no swinging to dread, because the cable is fixed to the wall. There is no vertigo to fear, because it is night, and you will see nothing. ”

“ Sandorf listened to hear when the heavy frame struck the ground. He heard not a sound!
“The donjon is built on a high rock which rises from the valley,” remarked Bathory.
“The height does not matter,” answered Sandorf. “There can be no doubt that the lightning conductor reaches the ground, because that is necessary for it to be of any use. And so we shall reach the ground without the risk of a fall.”
The reasoning was right, as a rule, but it was wrong in this instance, for the end of the conductor was plunged in the waters of Foiba.
The window being clear, the moment for escape had come. ”

“ This river finds its only outlet in a cavern which it has gradually cut out of the rocks, and into which it falls with the impetuosity of a tide-race or a whirlpool. Where does it go as it passes under the town? No one knows. ”

“ The prisoners had not one and could not make one. By the bedclothes? They had only the heavy woollen counterpanes thrown on the mattresses which lay on the iron frames fixed to the wall. It would have been impossible to have escaped by the window if Count Sandorf had not noticed a chain, or rather an iron rope, hanging outside, which might aid them to escape. ”

“ But to escape from the fortress, and particularly from the donjon occupied by the prisoners, had up to then been considered impossible. Even the idea had never occurred to any one.
The situation and exterior arrangements of the donjon in the fortress of Pisino were as follows: The donjon occupies one side of the terrace with which the town here ends. Leaning over the parapet of this terrace the eye plunges into a large, deep gulf, whose rugged sides, covered with thick entanglements of creepers, are cut down perpendicularly. Nothing overhangs the wall ”

“ If they could manage to clear the extremity of the bars, after forcing them backward and forward in their sockets, so as to knock off the angles of the stone, it might be easy to push the iron-work out of the embrasure,which widened as it went outward. ”