ives, if possible. If successful, I
should say that he himself will try to get away with us.

"At very considerable risk, and doubtless with great difficulty, he has
been able to get one message to us, but will not be able to do so again.
So he wishes us to procure a piece of cord thin enough to escape easy
detection, and hang it from our window, so that he can communicate with
us as may be necessary, and so that he can perhaps send up to us certain
small articles. For some reason he cannot come again until three days'
hence, when he will be waiting below our grating at midnight for us to
lower the line to him, when we may expect another message, and probably
instructions what to do so that we may escape. Why he cannot come until
midnight on the third night I cannot guess, but evidently there is
something very weighty and important to prevent his doing so, otherwise,
knowing that there are but five days altogether before our execution, he
would commence at once to arrange for our escape without losing any
time; for a delay of three days now may make all the difference whether
we are to live or die.

"All this we learn from his letter; and my opinion is that we must just
trust this man, and hope that he will be able to succeed in his efforts;
for until we hear again from him, as to what he wishes us to do to
assist him, we can do nothing--absolutely nothing. Now, the first
difficulty that confronts us is the matter of that line of which he
speaks, and without which, he tells us, escape is impossible. How in
the world can we secure a rope or cord of any sort? We never even see
our jailer, much less talk to him, so that we have no opportunity of
attempting to bribe him, and it is most unlikely that we could do so,
even if we could speak to him. There is nothing in the cell that we can
possibly turn to account; so I do not see at all what we can do. It
seems very hard to lose our lives just because we are at a loss for a
small thing like a piece of cord or rope."

"For my own part," said Roger, "I wonder somewhat why the man did not
make some suggestion as to how we might secure such a thing. Surely he
must know that it is utterly impossible for us to procure anything of
the kind in prison. I wonder, now, whether that was he or not whose
footsteps we heard in the yard a little time ago; and what--Why, Harry,
what if that thing that hit me in the face should be another message
wrapped round something to make it c