His attention had been drawn to the crutch, which was bound together with a lot of the cheapest sort of dry, fuzzy twine. Perfect tinder. But he'd have to burn most of it, and then he'd have no way to hold the crutch together, and therefore to conceal the existence of the sword – so, if the attempt failed tonight, he was doomed. In that sense ‘twere safer to wait until tomorrow, when they'd take the chain off of him. But only to chain him up, he supposed, to a whole file of other galériens :doddering Huguenots, most likely. And he wasn't about to wait for that. He must do it now.