"I'll carry on for another quarter of an hour," he said to himself, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "I wonder what's——"
The rasping of a key being inserted into the lock of the door caused him to start to his feet. There was no time to replace the leg of the stool, which was lying on its side. Thrusting the precious implement under the mattress, Hamerton leapt into the bed, drew the blanket well over his face, and simulated a snore.
The door was thrown open. There was a pause. It seemed to the Sub like the slow passing of at least half an hour. In his heated imagination he fancied the intruder had discovered the signs of his handiwork. He could discern through his almost closed eyelids the glimmer of a lantern upon the whitewashed stone walls of the cell.
He attempted another snore. It was a dismal failure; it seemed to him more like a pig's grunt than anything else he could think of. Then the light vanished, the door was closed with less noise than it had been opened with, and once more he was alone.
For nearly ten minutes Hamerton lay still. He was half-afraid that the suspicions of his visitor had been aroused, and that the man had gone away to bring the guard and make a thorough examination of the place. At length, pulling himself together, the Sub got out of bed, removed the steel from its handle, and replaced the leg of the stool. The dust that he had not thrown away he mixed with grease from the remains of his supper, and worked it into the crevices surrounding the stone that he was determined to remove.
This done, he threw himself upon his bed, and, being thoroughly tired out, was soon in a sound, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER XI
A Night of Toil
Four days passed. Hamerton's jailers, in spite of the monotonous "Ja's", had neither brought the promised writing materials nor taken any steps to help the prisoner to recover his money.
The work of loosening the refractory stone made steady progress. Once or twice the Sub fancied that it was shaking in its hard setting. He even went so far as to break off the tip of his steel instrument in a vain attempt to prise up the slab. The experiment was almost a disastrous one, for Hamerton had to regrind the steel ere he could start afresh. Luckily it was still long enough for the purpose, and also more rigid, while he had still the broken part as a supplementary tool.