.

Vicenti feebly reached out his hand and seized Roddy's arm.

"It is impossible!" he pleaded. "You can't get out of this cell."

"I will get out of it the same way I got in," answered Roddy. "Can you
walk?"

With his eyes, Vicenti measured the distance to the breach in the
wall.

"Help me!" he begged.

Roddy lifted him to his feet and, with his arm around him, supported
him into the tunnel. From his flask he gave him brandy, and Vicenti
nodded gratefully.

"Further on," directed Roddy, "you will find Senorita Rojas. Tell her
she must go at once. Don't let her know that I am going after her
father."

"It is madness!" cried Vicenti. "The turnkey is in the corridor, and
at any moment they may come to assassinate Rojas."

"Then I've no time to waste," exclaimed Roddy. "Get the Senorita and
yourself out of the tunnel, and get out _quick_!"

"But you?" pleaded Vicenti. "You can do nothing."

"If I must," answered Roddy, "I can blow the whole damn fort to
pieces!"

He ran to the spot where McKildrick had placed the extra explosives.
With these and the hand-drill, the sledge, and carrying his hat filled
with clay, he again climbed through the breach into the cell. The
fierceness of the attack upon the fort had redoubled, and to repulse
it the entire strength of the garrison had been summoned to the
ramparts, leaving, so far as Roddy could see through the bars, the
corridor unguarded. The door of the cell hung on three trunnions, and
around the lowest hinge the weight of the iron door had loosened the
lead and cement in which, many years before, it had been imbedded.
With his drill, Roddy increased the opening to one large enough to
receive the fingers of his hand and into it welded a stick of
dynamite. To this he affixed a cap and fuse, and clapping on his tamp
of clay, lit the fuse, and ran into the tunnel. He had cut the fuse to
half-length, and he had not long to wait. With a roar that shook the
cell and echoed down the corridor, that portion of the wall on which
the bars hung was torn apart, and the cell door, like a giant
gridiron, fell sprawling across the corridor. Roddy could not restrain
a lonely cheer. So long as the battle drowned out the noise of the
explosions and called from that part of the prison all those who might
oppose him, the rescue of Rojas again seemed feasible. With another
charge of dynamite the last cell in the corridor could be blown open,
and Rojas would be free. But Roddy was no