"The window, then," said Harry Girdwood.
Back they ran on tip-toe to the window, and pushing open the cas.e.m.e.nt, they looked out.
The sea.
Between thirty and forty feet below, and lashing the very base of the prison.
They turned to each other simultaneously.
"Ugh!"
"No chance here."
"This is a funny go."
"Well, Jack," said Harry, ruefully, "I"m glad you find it funny; for my part, I don"t see the joke."
"Your friend, old Dougherty, did, no doubt."
"Don"t be hard on poor old Dougherty," said Harry, laughingly. "It is very likely that his plan is complete, if we could only find it out."
"Where is it?"
"In our cell," said Harry; "I"ll go back and get it."
And putting aside the sack, he pressed his way into the opening.
Young Jack glanced around him at the boxes on the tressels.
An unpleasant feeling stole over him.
He did not relish being left alone with the dead.
He felt convinced that those ugly boxes did contain the bodies of dead prisoners.
"I"m with you, Harry," he said.
After him he pressed, and up the long, narrow tunnel made by old Dougherty they pa.s.sed.
Sometimes on all fours; sometimes standing nearly upright.
"A few steps more, and we are there," said Harry.
"Hah!"
"What now?"
"Listen!"
"I can hear voices," said Harry, in a whisper. "This is the stone which is all we have to displace to get back to the cell."
"Then the voices are there?"
"Yes."
"By jingo!" exclaimed young Jack, "then they must have discovered our absence already."
"Of course."
"How I should like to yell out something! Wouldn"t it startle them just a little?"
"Don"t be foolish, Jack," said his companion, uneasily. "You would ruin us."
"They"d never discover where we were. Shall I startle them?"
"No. Our only chance of safety depends upon keeping snug."
"All right."
They could hear noisy tones of anger, which denoted that something unusual had occurred.
"There are several people there," said Harry, listening intently at the stone.
"By Jove! how I should like to give them a cheer."
"Keep quiet," exclaimed Harry. "You will ruin us."
But, by a mere chance, he was wrong there.
Had young Jack really indulged in his propensity of devilment on this occasion, it would have saved them many hours of mental anguish and of bodily suffering, for the angry words uttered in the cell but lately tenanted by the two boys were spoken by Jack Harkaway the elder?
Yes.
Cruel fate was playing them a sad trick.
They were now actually fleeing from their father and protector.
The voice raised in anger, and whose echo came but feebly to them in their hiding-place, was his.
Harkaway"s.
And thus were these loving hearts parted by a few inches of stone wall.
The boys, on the one hand, taking the confused sounds for the murmur of their enemy"s voice.
And at that very moment Harkaway was nearly distracted to have all his hopes dashed rudely to the ground.
And in his anger, two lives were sorely endangered.