"So that, even with our friends waiting for us, we are tied hand and foot."
"No," said Geoffrey, with a smile at his friend's gloom; "but that is just what the Warder must say."
"What! Seize him and tie him up?" asked Featherstone, with a flash in his eyes that made the shaven prisoner a soldier again. "Bravo, Ripon! It can be done. What a mole I am."
"Do you think it can be managed without hurting the poor devil? With all his loud talk he has been kind to those two old friends. Just look at them now, pretending to turn that wheel, with no rope on the windlass, and he looking on! I don't want to harm him, Featherstone."
"No, nor I. But we can take him gently and swiftly and gag him. That won't hurt him, will it?"
"No; but should he make a noise?"
"Trust me, Ripon; I could strangle him with one hand. I shall simply hold him by the throat while Sydney gags him, you tie his hands, and the Duke his feet. We shall do it any day or hour that you give the word."
The friends' hands met as they bent over the monolith, and Featherstone, perhaps to show Geoffrey what he could do, almost crushed his hand in a giant grip.
"Now, tell Sydney and the Duke as soon as you can. To-morrow is our first day of opportunity, and we must be ready. Should it rain heavily or should the mist hang, we shall take our chance. All we have to do is to secure the Warder just as the five o'clock bell rings, and lie down over there inside the wall of this little yard. No one ever looks over. They will think as they pass from the farm that we have marched in as usual."
Before night Featherstone had told the Duke and Sydney, and the manner of those convicts changed mysteriously from that moment. Their gloom vanished. They smiled at Geoffrey every time he met their eyes. They were constantly whispering to each other and smiling, and often they looked long at the Warder and measured him as a foeman.