When all was quiet one night, Joe and I descended the ladder which led from our dormitory to the room below, and lifted, after some trouble, one of the planks of the floor. As I had hoped, it was not laid immediately on the ground; a space of two feet deep had been left. Into this hole night by night we cast the rubble we scooped out from the wall, carefully replacing the plank when we had done. We moved always with bare feet, carrying the stuff in our pillow cases. When I consider how many slight accidents might have marred our work and utterly undone us, I can not but think that we were in some sort watched over by Providence. Our life aboard ship had made us sure footed; but that we were able to work for weeks without betraying ourselves by a sound or the neglect of some precaution I ascribe to something higher than ourselves.
To come to an end of this part of my story, after several weeks' work at the rubble we once more encountered stone. Before attacking this, we waited for a night or two. We no longer had any fear of the slabs of the battlement falling; the cement was clearly strong enough to bear the weight of the passing sentry; but I had some apprehension that as he tramped along the man might discover the hollowness below him by the ringing of his feet on the stones. But two nights sufficed to banish this fear also, and then we started eagerly on the last portion of our task.
The flight of time passes almost unnoticed when the moments are well filled. Winter had given place to spring, and spring was now merging into summer. We had no almanac, and kept no account of the days; it was by the lengthening daylight and shortening darkness and the new warmth in the air that we knew summer was at hand. The long nights of winter would perhaps have been more favorable to our escape, but, on the other hand, we should suffer more from exposure, and moreover, I fancy no man is ever so brave in cold weather as in warm. We prisoners, at any rate, worked now with more zest than ever, heartened by the knowledge that if we did win to freedom, we should find ourselves in a pleasant, sunny world.
One night when Runnles and the bosun were at work, the chisel of the former met with no further obstacle. Enlarging the hole he had made, he set his eye to it, and whispered to the bosun to blow out the candle. Then he crawled back into the room and told me in his quiet way that he had seen the stars. Before morning the cement round a stone somewhat larger than the one we first removed had been scraped away, or pushed out into the moat, and we knew that when we had hauled the stone back through the tunnel into the room we should have made a hole large enough for the biggest of us to pass through.
My fears for the success of our enterprise were never greater than at this moment when the way seemed open. The men were in so wild a state of excitement that I was consumed with anxiety lest their demeanor should arouse suspicion among our guardians. Before I went down to the courtyard I spoke to them very earnestly, begging them to keep a watch on themselves, and not betray by word, look or sign that anything had happened to break the monotony of our life.
They obeyed my injunctions almost too well, for a more silent, morose, hangdog set of fellows could never have been seen; they provoked jests from the prisoners of the other dormitories, who declared that sure their music had made them all melancholy.
"It must be tonight, Joe," I said, when, our morning tasks being done, he and I went apart from the rest for a little private talk. "If we delay it, I cannot answer for their behavior."
"That is all very true, sir," said Joe; "but I can not see how we are to manage it. There's a hole in the wall, to be sure, and a new rope on the windlass of the well: but how we be going to get the rope where 'tis needed is more than I can guess."
"Don't you think that by tonight our drum will want washing?" I said.
He looked at me, clearly puzzled at what seemed a sudden change of subject.