it might be pushed in through the
aperture thus made. On receipt of the file an English five-pound note
will be conveyed to him in the same way as this letter, and another if
secrecy is observed and those in the house escape."

This important epistle had hardly been concocted before the door was
unlocked and our dusky servitor entered with the evening meal. He had
long since abandoned his first habit of bringing us our food in separate
receptacles, but conveyed it to us now in the saucepan in which it was
cooked, dividing it thence into our basins. These latter, it may be
interesting to state, had not been washed since our arrival.

All the time that our jailer was in the room I held my trembling
prisoner in my hand, clinging to him as to the one thing which connected
us with liberty. But the door had no sooner closed upon him than I had
tilted out my food upon the floor and converted my basin into a trap.

It may be guessed how long that night seemed to us, and with what
trembling eagerness we awaited the first signs of breaking day. Directly
it was light I took off and unravelled one of my socks. The thread thus
obtained I doubled, and having done this, secured one end of it to the
note, which I had rolled into a small compass, attaching the other to my
captive mouse's hind leg. Then we set ourselves to wait for six o'clock.
The hour came; and minute after minute went by before we heard in the
distance the tapping of the crutches on the stones. Little by little the
sound grew louder, and then fainter, and when I judged he was nearly at
my back, I stooped and thrust our curious messenger into the pipe. Then
we sat down to await the result.

As the mouse, only too glad to escape, ran into the aperture, the
thread, on which our very lives depended, swiftly followed, dragging its
message after it. Minutes went by; half an hour; an hour; and then the
remainder of the day; and still nothing came to tell us that our appeal
had been successful.

That night I caught another mouse, wrote the letter again, and at six
o'clock next morning once more despatched it on its journey. Another day
went by without reply. That night we caught another, and at six-o'clock
next morning sent it off; a third, and even a fourth, followed, but
still without success. By this time the mice were almost impossible to
catch, but our wits were sharpened by despair, and we managed to hit
upon a method that eventually secured for us a plentiful supp