“Glummy wasn’t with them.”
“No.”
“I wonder what Professor Strong will say when he finds we, too, are missing?”
“He’ll be very much worried, no doubt of that. Perhaps he’ll set the police on the track. I’d like to know if he found out anything about Glummy.”
They did not intend to remain prisoners if they could help it, and so set to work immediately, exploring every nook and corner of the room, which was large and built in the shape of the letter L.
“I don’t see any way out, excepting by way of the iron door, and that’s as fast as can be,” said Sam, after an hour had passed.
“Excepting we can pry off the bars from one of the windows.”
“Even if you did that, how are you going to get to the ground? It’s a good eighteen or twenty feet. If you dropped that far on those stones you might break a leg.”
“Oh, I’d risk a drop. Besides, we can make a rope by tearing up a shirt, or one of our jackets. Anything to get away, to my way of thinking.”
They examined the various bars to the windows and began operations on one which looked to be more loose than the others. But though they worked with a will on the mortar with their pocket-knives, the stuff was hard and defied all their efforts.