The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord, which he examined for a second and flung away with horror.

“The Punjab lasso!” he muttered.

“What is it?” asked Raoul.

The Persian shivered. “It might very well be the rope by which the man was hanged, and which was looked for so long.”

And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk of his lantern over the walls. In this way, he lit up a curious thing: the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves; and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared in the ceiling.