I could not make out the words that followed, but it was all merely perfunctory business I recognized, as the approaching figures were officers. Now fear often gives a man a judgment and cleverness that support him in sore straits. There was but one chance, and I took it. I turned about, retraced my steps, passed the two sentries, who saluted me once more, then again the third man at the head of the stairway, and I was back in the corridor.
When I had turned the angle of the passage, I entered one of the rooms, and crouched down behind a curtain, holding my big hat in my lap. My teeth chattered so that I feared the noise would be audible, and I had been just in time, as, laughing and talking, the officers were approaching.
As I sat crouched in a corner I perceived that they had some huge joke among them. They were walking slowly, and I heard distinctly what passed.
"The idea of Tillinghast forgetting the countersign strikes me as being grand," exclaimed some one, with a guffaw at the end of the sentence.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed another. "I told you it was the author of Robinson Crusoe, Tilly."
"Why, confound it all! I always thought that he himself wrote the book," roared a deep bass.
I recognized the speaker as the junior in command of the prison. It was his clothes, by-the-way, that I had on my back at the moment.
"I think the Governor chose it for a play on words," said another. "A poor pun even for him."
"Why we should require a password at all is more than I can see," said Tillinghast. "Come down to my quarters, Carntyne. We have time for a game of whist."
They passed on. I waited a few minutes, putting two and two together, and suddenly it came to me. I had the password at the tip of my tongue! Hastily arising, I stepped outside of the room. It was but a few yards to the bottom of the stairs, and I heard the sentry humming a snatch of a tune, and keeping time to it with the stamping of his feet in a sort of a jig. I was afraid that if I approached him the way that I had done before, he might look closer, so I made believe that I was carrying on the fag end of a conversation with some one, and answered an imaginary question with a laugh (a trifle forced, I must admit).