ume, being quite as large as a man's head.

The next day another melon was bought, but this time Vincent did not
open it in public. Examining it closely, he perceived that it had been
cut through the middle, and no doubt contained a portion of the rope. He
hesitated as to his next step. If he took the melon up to his room he
would be sure to find some men there, and would be naturally called upon
to divide the fruit; and yet there was nowhere else he could hide it.
For a long time he sat with his back to the wall and the melon beside
him, abusing himself for his folly in not having told Dan to send the
rope in small lengths that he could hide about him. The place where he
had sat down was one of the quietest in the yard, but men were
constantly strolling up and down. He determined at last that the only
possible plan was in the first place to throw his coat over his melon,
to tuck it up underneath it, then to get hold of one end of the ball of
rope that it doubtless contained and to endeavor to wind it round his
body without being observed. It was a risky business, and he would
gladly have tossed the melon over the wall had he dared to do so; for if
he were detected, not only would he be punished with much more severe
imprisonment, but Dan might be arrested and punished most severely.

Unfortunately the weather was by no means hot, and it would look strange
to take off his coat; besides, if he did so, how could he coil the rope
round him without being observed? So that idea was abandoned. He got up
and walked to an angle in the wall, and there sat down again, concealing
the melon as well as he could between him and the wall when anyone
happened to come near him. He pulled the halves apart and found, as he
had suspected, it was but a shell, the whole of the fruit having been
scooped out. But he gave an exclamation of pleasure on seeing that
instead, as he feared, of a large ball of rope being inside, the
interior was filled with neatly made hanks, each containing several
yards of thin but strong rope, together with a hank of strong string.

Unbuttoning his coat, he thrust them in; then he took the melon rind and
broke it into very small pieces and threw them about. He then went up to
his room and thrust the hanks, unobserved, one by one among the straw
which, covered by an army blanket, constituted his bed. To-morrow, no
doubt, Dan would supply him somehow with a screw-driver. On going down
to the gate next day he found