“The Captain had one hand up through the surface when I started back here. He says we are beyond the fort wall, and by the time we can come out there one after the other, he will have the opening large enough for us to pass through. So come on.”
The order of our going had been pre-arranged. I was to be the last. One by one I saw my comrades go down the tunnel, and then I entered. As rapidly as I could I crept along, touching now and then the heels of the man in front of me. Then he rose to his feet, and I knew we had reached the outlet. I could even feel the fresh air as it blew down upon me. How good it felt! One quick spring and I would be free!
An exclamation from the man in front of me as he went out of the opening—an exclamation quickly smothered as it seemed to me—reached my ear. I wondered what it could mean, but there was no time now for investigation, nor even for hesitation. So up I arose, placed my hands on the firm ground, and leaped out of the hole into the arms of two British soldiers who were waiting to capture me.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ESCAPE
I struggled with my captors for a while, not so much because I expected to escape from them, but in hopes that I would thereby aid my companions in their flight. For I could neither see nor hear anything of them, and believed I was the only one who had been seized by the British guards. At length I ceased my efforts, and, yielding to the inevitable, let them lead me away. They conducted me around the prison to its front entrance and took me into the superintendent’s office, where to my amazement I beheld all my comrades, each like myself in the grasp of two soldiers.
There was a broad grin on the face of the prison overseer as he gazed at us, and then addressing himself to Captain Tucker, he said:
“It was a neat little game, Captain, I admit that, and with some it might have succeeded, but not with me. Why, sir, let me show you that I have known of your scheme from the beginning. See here—” and turning to the partition back of his chair, he pushed aside an old garment that was hanging there, disclosing a small aperture, about the size of a walnut on that side of the wall, but tapering down to a small point on the side of our room. “With the coat hanging there to shut out the light,” he continued, “you did not notice the tiny opening, and did not suspect that many times each day I either had my eye upon you, or my ear was where I could hear all you were saying,” and he glanced at his prisoner with a complacent air which said: “I was more than a match for you.”
Then he went on:
“Oh! I knew you were a shrewd fellow, Captain Tucker, and had outwitted more than one of our officers before now, but I was determined you should not outwit me. So I put you and your subalterns in there where I could literally keep you under my eye. I saw you the night you cut out the boards of your berth, and immediately suspected your plan, but purposely allowed you to go on to the end. I was outside the prison watching when your hand first broke through the surface. Then I called my men, for I had arranged a little plan, too, and captured each one of you as you came out of the tunnel, and marched you in here. I assure you the joke is on you,” and he threw back his head and laughed immoderately.
It was no laughing matter for us, however, and we were a crest-fallen group as we stood there looking first at our captors and then at each other, and realizing that our weeks of hard toil had availed us nothing.