A little rest brought back Tom’s breath and gave him renewed strength for what he had yet to do, which was to free his ankles. But he had accomplished the hardest part, which was to get his hands loose. It was not easy, however, to loosen the knots in the ropes about his feet, and it was several hours before he managed to free himself completely. One reason for this was the tightness of the knots, and another was that, occasionally one or more of the men below would come upstairs and flash a gleam from an electric torch into the room where Tom was a prisoner, to make sure he was still safe.
But the young man could tell, by the movement of chairs below, when this inspection was coming, and each time he was ready for it. He assumed on the floor the same position he had held when still bound and he wound the ropes back again on his wrists so it could not be seen, from a casual inspection, that they were loose. And he also placed the gag in his mouth.
Because of the necessity for stopping work every now and then to assume the position of a bound prisoner, Tom was longer engaged in freeing his feet than otherwise would have been the case.
Consequently it was almost morning when he was able to stand up and move about freely. Cautiously he crossed the room, pausing at every board to make sure it would not squeak and betray him, and at last he reached a window through which the faint rosy streaks of dawn were coming—the second morning that Tom had been away from home.
“Now to see if I can get this window open,” mused Tom. He scarcely hoped to find that it would open readily, and he was not greatly disappointed when he found it fastened. By the morning light, now growing stronger, and by feeling, he ascertained that the sash was held down by nails driven over the edges of it into the frame.
A claw hammer would have taken these nails out in a second of time, but Tom had no claw hammer, and the files by which he had removed the chain from his leg had been taken from him.
“But maybe by bending the nail back and forth often enough I can either loosen it enough to pull it out or I can break it off,” he told himself.
He felt that he must now work quickly. For some time there had been silence in the rooms below him, and he guessed that his captors were sleeping, thinking him securely bound and locked in.
“But they’ll awake soon and start getting breakfast,” Tom decided. “They’ll bring me up some, and then they’ll see that I have loosened the ropes. I’ve got to get away before they come up to feed me.”
His fingers sought a wedging nail and began to bend it back and forth. At first it gave only a little, but eventually it moved more and Tom’s hopes rose.