spy,
that's what you've been doing. Who locked you in?"

"Will you come round and open the door?" said Archy in an angry whisper.

"Oh, of course," replied the boy grinning; and he dropped down, rushed
through the bushes, and disappeared from view.

Archy stepped back to the door listening, but there was not a sound.

"He has gone to give the alarm," thought the prisoner, and he looked
excitedly round for a way of escape.

Nothing but the chimney presented itself. The door was too strong to
attack, and he remembered the three fastenings.

Should he try the chimney?

And be stuck there, and dragged out like a rabbit by the hind legs from
his hole!

"No; I've degraded myself enough," he said angrily, "and there are sure
to be bars across. Hah!"

A happy inspiration had come, and placing one hand upon his breast, he
thrust in the other, gave a tug, and drew out his little curved dirk,
glanced at the edge, ran to the window and began to cut at one of the
bars.

Labour in vain. He divided the paint, and produced a few squeaks and
grating sounds, as he realised that the attempt was madness.

Turning sharply, he looked about the room; then, after glancing ruefully
at the bright little weapon, halfway up the blade of a rich deep blue,
in which was figured a pattern in gold, he yielded to necessity, and
began to chop at the top bar of the grate, so as to nick the edges of
his weapon and make it saw-like.

The result was not very satisfactory, but sufficiently so to make him
essay the bar of the window once more, producing a grating,
ear-assailing sound, as he found that now he did make a little
impression,--so little though, that the probability was, if he kept on
working well for twenty-four hours, he would not get through.

But at the end of five minutes he stopped, and thrust back the dirk into
its sheath.

He fancied he had heard steps outside the room door, and he ran to it
and listened, in the faint hope that the boy might have come to open it
and set him free.

It was a very faint hope, and one he felt not likely to be realised, and
he returned once more to the window, with the intention of resuming his
task, when he heard the bushes pressed aside by some one coming, and
directly after the bars were seized as before. Ram sprang up, found a
resting-place for his toes, and looked in, grinning at him.

"Hullo!" he cried, in a whisper, as if he did not wish to be heard;
"here you are still."

"Yes.