off in
the middle of a page into a reverie, and grow inwardly excited over
some wild plan that mapped itself out completely in his feverish
brain.

Now as they approached St. Andrew's his determination was as strong as
ever, but his resources were exhausted. Double-guarded and without
weapons, he found himself helpless. The fevered excitement of the past
four days had subsided into a dull apathy of hurt in which his brain
was as delicate and alert as the mainspring of a watch. He was
resigned to the worst if it came, but was ready, like a panther in a
tree, to spring at the slightest false move of his enemies.

Now for the last time he went over his little eight-by-ten prison. He
examined the chair as though it were some instrument of the
Inquisition. He pulled the bed to pieces and handled every inch of the
frame. He emptied every compartment of the queer hanging cabinet that
had been stuffed with books and miscellanies; he examined every
article in the room.

He had done this a dozen times before, but some instinct drove him to
repeat the process. There was always hope of the undiscovered, and,
besides, he needed the physical action and the close application of
his mind. So, mechanically and doggedly he went over every inch of his
little prison.

But in vain.

The roof and walls were of heavy planking and were old. They were full
of nicks as well as wood-knots, and the appearance of some of the
former gave Code an idea. He went carefully over the boards, sticking
his thumb-nail into them and lifting or pressing down as the shape of
the nick warranted. For they resembled very much the depressions cut
in sliding covers on starch-boxes whereby such covers can be pushed in
their grooves.

At any other time he would have considered this the occupation of a
madman, but now it kept him occupied and held forth the faint gleam of
hope by which he now lived.

Suddenly something happened. He was lying across his immovable cot
fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt
something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him,
and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he
put his thumb again in the niche and lifted up. With all his strength
he lifted and, all at once, a panel rushed up and stuck, revealing a
little box perhaps a foot square that had been built back from the
rear wall of the old storeroom.

That was all, except for the fact that something was in