“O, give me an hour. I’ve got a good deal to say, and besides it takes me a long time to write a letter.”
The man deposited the writing materials on a rough table in one corner of the room, and then went out, closing the door after him, and turning a key in the lock as he did so. Chase heard it and knew that he was a prisoner.
CHAPTER XVI.
BROWN’S MISFORTUNE.
Chase realized his situation, but he was not as badly frightened as he would have been a few months before. One soon learns to bear up bravely under almost any adverse circumstances, especially if he have an object in view. Chase had an object to accomplish, and that was to reach home and friends once more. He could do nothing toward it while he was locked up there, so he at once began an examination of his prison with a view to escaping from it. He waited until the landlord had descended the stairs, and then, after listening a few minutes at the door, to make sure that he did not come back, turned his attention to the nearest window. He found there only the shattered remains of a sash, and what he had supposed to be blinds were rough boards nailed on the outside. These boards were further secured by two bars of iron, one at the top and the other at the bottom. They had been forced out a little at the bottom, as far as the bar would allow them to go, and there were deep dents and scratches on them, showing that a lever of some kind had been used against them.
“This room is a regular jail,” thought Chase. “That landlord takes in all the sailors that come here, and after they have spent every cent of their money, he locks them up here until he gets ready to ship them off on some vessel. That’s what he intends to do with me, and he seems in a fair way to accomplish his object.”
Talking thus to himself, Chase made a close examination of the fastenings of the window. Some one who had been confined in that room had made a desperate effort to push off the boards, that was evident, for the marks of the lever he had used were there yet. But before the boards could be pushed out far enough to draw the nails, they had been stopped by the bar outside. The first thing was to get at these nails and break them off. The bottom of one of the boards could then be pushed aside, leaving an opening through which he could crawl out.
Chase’s Escape from the Sailor Boarding House.