er. 'All right, Dick; take these spikes.' He
had half-a-dozen stout bits of iron; how ever he got them I know no more
than the dead, but there they were, and a light strong coil of rope as
well. I knew what the spikes were for, of course; to drive into the
wall between the stones and climb up by. With the rope we were to drop
ourselves over the wall the other side. It was thirty feet high--no fool
of a drop. More than one man had been picked up disabled at the bottom
of it. He had a short stout piece of iron that did to hammer the spikes
in; and that had to be done very soft and quiet, you may be sure.

It took a long time. I thought the night would be over and the daylight
come before it was all done; it was so slow. I could hear the tick-tack
of his iron every time he knocked one of the spikes in. Of course he
went higher every time. They were just far enough apart for a man to
get his foot on from one to another. As he went up he had one end of the
coil of the rope round his wrist. When he got to the top he was to draw
it up to fasten to the top spike, and lower himself down by it to the
ground on the other side. At last I felt him pull hard on the rope. I
held it, and put my foot on the first spike. I don't know that I should
have found it so very easy in the dark to get up by the spikes--it was
almost blackfellows' work, when they put their big toe into a notch
cut in the smooth stem of a gum tree that runs a hundred feet without
a branch, and climb up the outside of it--but Jim and I had often
practised this sort of climbing when we were boys, and were both pretty
good at it. As for Starlight, he had been to sea when he was young, and
could climb like a cat.

When I got to the top I could just see his head above the wall. The rope
was fastened well to the top spike, which was driven almost to the head
into the wall. Directly he saw me, he began to lower himself down the
rope, and was out of sight in a minute. I wasn't long after him, you may
be sure. In my hurry I let the rope slip through my hands so fast they
were sore for a week afterwards. But I didn't feel it then. I should
hardly have felt it if I had cut them in two, for as my feet touched
the ground in the darkness I heard the stamp of a horse's hoof and the
jingle of a bit--not much of a sound, but it went through my heart like
a knife, along with the thought that I was a free man once more; that
is, free in a manner of speaking. I knew we couldn't be tak