our own
hands. Let us make the experiment--but we ought to write it down as we
go along, or else we shall forget part of it perhaps."

"Ay, there is the difficulty," said Harry; "we have no writing materials
and nothing which we can use instead of them."

"Not so fast, not so fast, lad," his friend replied. "That is a
difficulty which we must find means to overcome. Let us have a look
round, and first see if there is anything that we can use for a pen. If
we can find such a thing, the ink will be an easy matter afterwards."

"Indeed?" exclaimed Harry incredulously. "I pray you explain how in the
world you are going to get a supply of ink?"

"Never mind," retorted Roger with a quiet smile; "you leave that to me.
Get me something that will serve for a pen, and I will find the ink
quickly enough."

Seeing that Roger was not going to divulge the secret of the ink, Harry
joined him in a search of the cell, looking for something that would
answer the purpose.

Just at that moment there was a "click", and, turning quickly round,
they perceived that another meal had been pushed in through the
trap-door.

"We will leave that for a time," said Roger, intent upon his search.
"The food can wait; but we cannot delay with what we are now doing; for
we can never know when we may be interrupted."

Harry agreed, and the search proceeded without very conspicuous success.
A few fragments of straw, a quantity of woolly dust, a few tiny
splinters of wood, and a small and extremely rusty nail were all that
rewarded them.

"Ah!" ejaculated Harry, "I had forgotten that window-sill; there is more
likely to be something in that accumulation of stuff up there than in
the cell itself. Come and stand below it, so that I can mount on your
shoulders, Roger; and then I can rake about there and see if I can find
anything for our purpose.

"And, now that I come to think of it, we have never yet had a look out
of that window. We can only see those high walls; there may be
something to interest us below there, in the courtyard, or whatever it
may be."

Roger moved quickly to the other end of the cell, and, standing below
the grated opening, allowed Harry to clamber up his body and finally to
stand upon his shoulders.

Harry then grasped the bars of the grating, to take some of the pressure
off his friend's back, and began to burrow in the heap of dust and
rubbish that had accumulated for years upon years on the sill. Suddenly
Roge