Half-suffocated with the heat and almost blinded with dust, I was painfully crawling back to my trap when my head hit a plank along the wall with more than usual violence. The beam, seemingly rotten underneath, eaten perhaps by ants, splintered like touch-wood and my head came up through the floor. I found myself looking into the shed.
Then germinated in my mind the seed of a great idea. The next best thing to escaping is to give the appearance of having escaped, a theory which many of our war prisoners in Germany turned to good account. If my captors were not acquainted with the construction of the shed, if, as I calculated, they would, from the discovery of a large hole in the floor, jump to the conclusion, without further investigation, that I had burrowed my way out under the floor, the guard over the shed would be relaxed and I should, at any rate, have a little breathing-space in which to think out the next move. There were a lot of "ifs" about my plan. But it was the only one I could think of for the moment and I set about putting it into operation at once.
Where the rotten plank had given way I enlarged the hole as much as possible. Then I climbed back through it into the shed, replaced the plank with the ring and covered it up again with the pile of sail-cloth, and without further delay dived down again through the hole I had made under the floor. I crawled away among the beams and joists as far as I could go in the direction of the other side of the shed and then lay still.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ESCAPE
Good fortune, I have always contended, comes to those who make ready to receive it. I can well imagine the Foolish Virgins of the parable spending the rest of their lives lamenting their hard fate and attributing their wise sisters' preparedness not to prevision but to good luck. Throughout my life I have always tried to leave nothing to chance but the dénouement. It is in the dénouement that Fate lies in ambush, waiting to slay or to spare....
I had done what I could, I reflected as I lay up in my stuffy hole. Now Fate must take a hand. I had no settled plan. In course of time they would come to look for me and if they did not drag me forth by the heels from my hiding-place, I should watch for the best opportunity that presented itself for my dash into liberty....
I think I may have dozed off; for I did not hear the shed door above me open. What brought me to my senses with a shock and set my nerves a-tingling was the stump of a heavy footstep, a well-remembered halting step, that made my heart stand still.
Then came the hubbub of excited voices, the glare of torch-light filtering through the interstices of the floor and the roar of Clubfoot's voice shouting orders. A long beam of white light clove the darkness of my lair. Someone had climbed down into the hole. I held my breath and wondered whether against the white concrete on which I lay my drill suit might escape notice.