Two American Boys in the War Zone

by Levi Worthington Green

“Let me hang all this plunder over your shoulders, Ray, so as to get it out of the way. I don’t want to put it on the dirty floor.” And Sidney suited the action to the word and disposed of the blanket rolls and knapsacks by turning his brother into a pack-animal.

Then he selected the bar which seemed to be thinnest at the lower end, and began to give it quick, sharp jerks, first one way and then the other. At first that assault made very little impression, then the bar began to yield a trifle. Suddenly, with almost no warning, when Sidney gave an especially strenuous pull, the iron snapped in two at the bottom, the upper end dropped out of the hole where it had rested in the masonwork, and the bar fell clattering to the floor.

The boys stood rigid with their hearts in their throats. The noise had echoed back from the walls of the empty room until they were sure it must have roused the whole town. They waited, hardly daring to breath, listening for the sound of running feet, and then for the opening of the door and the entrance of guards. Why hadn’t he bribed that man to let them out! Sidney thought, bitterly. That would have been a chance, at least, and after such an alarm, of course, there would be no chance at all.

Outside, however, the silence was not broken, but continued as profound as before. The occasional barking of a dog only served to emphasize the lack of other sound. As the boys waited in tense suspense, they could hardly credit their ears which told them that the terrific clatter of the falling bar had roused no corresponding commotion outside. After they had stood absolutely quiet so long that the impulse to shout was almost uncontrollable, they were convinced that no harm had been done, and Raymond whispered to his brother,—

“This must be where the Seven Sleepers live, Sid. We’ll get away all right and don’t you forget it.”

“The sounder they sleep the better,” replied Sidney.

With the loose iron to use as a lever the other two window bars were quickly broken at the bottom and bent up, for they did not come loose at the top as the first one had done. Then the boys arranged their plans carefully so that there might be no slip.

“We’ll each sling a knapsack on,” said Sidney. “We can get out with them on all right, and that will be the best way to carry them. Then I’ll climb out and you pass me the beds and come yourself.”

That was easily accomplished; Sidney climbed out without mishap, and received the blanket rolls which Raymond passed him. Then Raymond prepared to follow. The window was large enough so that he climbed up into it, and drawing his legs up turned around and proceeded to drop down on the outside, feet first. But when he let himself down on the outside of the wall, his trousers caught on the stub of one of the bars that had broken just above the window sill. For a moment he was suspended in the air, then the cloth gave way with a rip and he fell with a thud in a heap on the ground.

Sidney stood waiting for his brother with the blanket rolls in his hands. Though it was very dark, it had been so much darker inside the building that he could distinguish objects very well. He saw that they were in a sort of an alley, only a few feet wide, between the jail and the next building. Toward the front of the jail it opened out into a wider space which Sidney knew must be a street. The other way it melted into indistinguishable blackness.