"We have arranged everything but your actual getting out of the prison and crossing the marsh at the foot of the hill. ['The Farm' was here meant.] This marsh extends between two guard towers, and is nine hundred yards long. It cannot be crossed at night, for the warders withdraw and lock on the prison side the swinging bridges of the numerous canals. These canals are seven feet deep and fourteen wide, and the banks are soft peat. It would be dangerous to try to swim them. You must procure a long plank or beam, and carry it from trench to trench. You can get such a plank, which two men can carry easily, at the new tool-shed which the convicts are building against the outer wall of the prison to the right of the lower gate.
"We cannot do anything to help you out of the prison till we hear from you. You must escape by the lower side of the prison and cross the marsh, for the town and warders' quarters extend on the other three sides. In the old tool-shed against the outer lower wall, where you leave your tools every evening, there is a small portable steam-engine. Place your answer inside the furnace door, to the right, and search there every morning for our messages. You need not grope around. Put your hand to the right corner of the furnace, and our parcel will be there. In case you can get out without our help, here are complete instructions:
"When you have crossed the marsh, keep straight on across the hill, at the foot of which, a mile from the prison, there is a narrow lane. Keep to the right on this lane till you come to the high road. Half a mile down this road to the left stands a cottage with a ploughed field behind. Go boldly into this house day or night; the door will be left open, though latched. Once inside the cottage, unseen by the guards, you are safe. Trust implicitly on us for anything else."
Geoffrey read the letter many times before he turned to his miserable supper of dry bread and cocoa. He impressed every detail on his mind so that the writing might be destroyed. Then he began to eat and think together, and it was nearly morning before the thinking ceased. In his mind he must settle every difficulty, foresee and circumvent every danger before he made a move. Were it only his own peril he were considering he would have had small anxiety. But now he felt on himself the burden of the lives of his three friends, who would undoubtedly attempt to carry out his arrangements. At last he fell asleep, and it seemed that the vile roar of the waking bell began a few minutes later.
In the morning Geoffrey sat face to face with the first and least of his difficulties: he had no means of writing to his unknown friends. But the mind springs to experiment when it is left alone. In a minute he had paper, pen, and ink, and, stretched on the floor, with his only book, the prison Bible, for a desk, he was writing his answer.
The ink was on the floor, composed of the asphalt dust of which the floor was made. He had swept it into a little heap with his hard floor-brush, and mixed it with water from his washing basin. His pen was the wire-twisted end of his leathern boot-lace; and his paper, whole leaves carefully torn from the Bible, across the small type of which he wrote in heavy letters as follows:
"We cannot possibly escape from within the prison. Our cells are on the third tier, opening into the prison, and two of our friends are old and infirm. We must escape from the guards while employed outside the walls, conceal ourselves till night, and then follow your instructions. To-day we shall begin our preparations. We cannot tell how soon we may make the attempt, or how long we shall have to wait. Wednesdays and Saturdays are the only days on which it can be done; and we must wait for a very rainy or foggy evening on one of those days. The present weather is in our favor, so do not leave the cottage empty day or night for a few weeks."
Geoffrey concealed his letter, ate his breakfast when the six o'clock bell rang, and the bolts of five hundred cells shot back by one mighty stroke of a steam piston-rod, he paraded with his companions, and the four were marched off to their work at the monument.
Sydney and the Duke walked together in rear of Geoffrey and Featherstone. The Duke, in order to keep up with the regulation pace, secretly clung to Sydney's arm, which he dropped when the officer looked round and took again when the danger had passed.
When they came to the tool-shed, the prisoners went in one by one for their tools, which were piled up and taken away day after day, by the same men in the same order. The portable steam-engine was to the left of the door. Geoffrey went straight to it, opened the furnace door, and left his letter.
A few minutes later, when they were on the cairn, Featherstone's anxiety spoke in his eyes, and Geoffrey told him the whole story, in a whisper, as they walked.
"Can it be done?" asked Featherstone.