Thus, while their backs were turned upon him, he gained in safety the tread-wheel yard where he had taken exercise, and every point of which he had accurately committed to memory.
His movements were now executed with the rapidity of one who had well weighed and pre-considered them.
Taking from a corner a gardener's basket, which he had previously noticed there, and which was used to convey the potatoes that were dug up in the prison-grounds, he turned it bottom upwards against a low building, or out-house, which abutted with a shelving slate roof against the high wall. By means of the basket, he raised himself upon this roof—crept up on it—and with one nimble spring upwards was enabled to catch at the chevaux-de-frise, or revolving iron spikes, which were fixed near the top of the wall, and which thus hung over the out-house.
Careless of the wounds which he received from the chevaux-de-frise, he scrambled over them, and gained the top of the wall.
The wall was much too high to permit him to drop into the street with any chance of escaping a broken limb. This he had previously reflected upon; and he now commenced the desperate feat of walking along the summit of that lofty wall—with a bright moon shining above, and the almost positive certainty of being observed by the watchmen inside the prison.
To increase the personal danger incurred by this extraordinary undertaking, the wall is irregular on the top, breaking into sudden and abrupt falls towards the south-western angle, and then rising with elevations equally abrupt from that point to the north-western angle.
This peculiarity of structure is caused by the unevenness of the ground on which the entire establishment with all its enclosures stands.
The journey along the top of the walls was not even a short one. The object of the Resurrection Man was to reach the houses in Guildford Place, which join the prison-wall on the eastern side. The point where he ascended was nearly at the middle of the southern wall; but between him and the south-eastern angle stood the gates and the governor's house, which he could not pass. He therefore had to make a circuit comprising nearly half the southern wall—all the western wall—all the northern wall—and then a part of the eastern wall;—and this in the largest prison in England!
It was a desperate venture: but—as we have before said—Tidkins was a desperate man—and his case was also desperate!
Fortune often aids the unworthy; and she did so upon this occasion.