every inch of the ground. Dick and he had surveyed and resurveyed it for
days. The coast was clear. No one was on guard at the vital point, but
still he lingered, his breath coming and going painfully, as a break in
the clouds cast a moving shape over the undulating ground. Should he
give the boy another half-hour's grace? He makes a circuit in the
direction Dick must approach by and waits. He will count a hundred very
slowly, then wait no longer. He counts up to fifty, hears a coming step,
and waits alertly. No--it passes on. He begins again--counts one
hundred, two hundred. No sign. "Pah! it is madness to delay for him. The
young poltroon has lost his resolution in his lovesick fever. Very
likely he has been unable to run the risk of Rosa's anger--her mother's
indignation--the possibility of never seeing the girl again." Well, he
had given him ample grace. He had endangered his own and other lives to
humor a boyish whim. Now he must act, and swiftly.

The plan was too far gone in execution to be changed. He must carry out
the final measures alone. Now, one of these details required some one to
slip down on the ground and crawl to the point between the windows where
the prisoners were working and aid them to remove the thin, shell of
brick. If it fell outward, the guard at the corner would hear the noise,
and might come down to see what it was that made it. The removal of this
wall released all confined in the main prison. These he saw stealing out
in groups of ten or more. They had guides waiting on the bank of the
river. Jack gave them final orders. The most difficult work was the
getting out Jones and Barney, for they had special cells. Jack was to
guard Jones's exit and Dick Barney's, but now all the work would devolve
upon him. It was two o'clock, and he dared wait no longer. Raising
himself from the low wall where he had been crouching, he started toward
the corner of the prison farthest from the guard-room. At the wall of
the building he dropped flat on his face and began to crawl forward,
sheltered by the low ground that formed a sort of dry ditch about the
basement of the prison. He had barely stretched himself at full length
when a bright light was flashed on him from a deep doorway just beyond
him, and a voice, mocking and triumphant, exclaimed.

"This is a bad place to swim, my friend! There ain't enough water to
drown you, but if you stir you'll run against a bullet."

Jack lay quite still and raised his