And be stuck there, and dragged out like a rabbit by the hind legs from his hole!
“No; I’ve degraded myself enough,” he said angrily, “and there are sure to be bars across. Hah!”
A happy inspiration had come, and placing one hand upon his breast, he thrust in the other, gave a tug, and drew out his little curved dirk, glanced at the edge, ran to the window and began to cut at one of the bars.
Labour in vain. He divided the paint, and produced a few squeaks and grating sounds, as he realised that the attempt was madness.
Turning sharply, he looked about the room; then, after glancing ruefully at the bright little weapon, halfway up the blade of a rich deep blue, in which was figured a pattern in gold, he yielded to necessity, and began to chop at the top bar of the grate, so as to nick the edges of his weapon and make it saw-like.
The result was not very satisfactory, but sufficiently so to make him essay the bar of the window once more, producing a grating, ear-assailing sound, as he found that now he did make a little impression,—so little though, that the probability was, if he kept on working well for twenty-four hours, he would not get through.
But at the end of five minutes he stopped, and thrust back the dirk into its sheath.
He fancied he had heard steps outside the room door, and he ran to it and listened, in the faint hope that the boy might have come to open it and set him free.
It was a very faint hope, and one he felt not likely to be realised, and he returned once more to the window, with the intention of resuming his task, when he heard the bushes pressed aside by some one coming, and directly after the bars were seized as before. Ram sprang up, found a resting-place for his toes, and looked in, grinning at him.
“Hullo!” he cried, in a whisper, as if he did not wish to be heard; “here you are still.”