pon
which the cushions which served as their beds were laid, were all
stone. There was no other furniture, of any kind.

"Divil a bit of iron do I see in the place, Mister Charles," Tim said.
"They don't even give us a knife for dinner, but stew all their meats
into a smash."

"There is something, Tim," Charlie said, looking at the door. "Look at
those long hinges."

The hinges were of ornamented ironwork, extending half across the
door. Upon one of the scrolls of this ironwork they set to work.
Chipping a small piece of stone off an angle of the wall, outside the
window; with great difficulty they thrust this under the end of the
scroll, as a wedge. Another piece, slightly larger, was then pushed
under it. The gain was almost imperceptible, but at last the piece of
iron was raised from the woodwork sufficiently to allow them to get a
hold of it, with their thumbs. Then, little by little, they bent it
upward; until at last they could obtain a firm hold of it.

The rest was comparatively easy. The iron was tough and strong but, by
bending it up and down, they succeeded at last in breaking it off. It
was the lower hinge of the door, upon which they had operated, as the
loss of a piece of iron there would be less likely to catch the eye of
anyone coming in. They collected some dust from the corner of the
room, moistened it, and rubbed it on to the wood so as to take away
its freshness of appearance; and they then set to work with the piece
of iron, which was of a curved shape, about three inches long, an inch
wide, and an eighth of an inch thick.

Taking it by turns, they ground away the stone round the bottom of one
of the bars. For the first inch, the stone yielded readily to the
iron; but below that it became harder, and their progress was slow.
They filled the hole which they had made with water, to soften the
stone, and worked steadily away till night; when, to their great joy,
they found that they had reached the bottom of the bar. They then
enlarged the hole inwards, in order that the bar might be pulled back.
Fortunately, it was much decayed by age; and they had no doubt that,
by exerting all their strength, together they could bend it
sufficiently to enable them to get through.

At the hour when their dinner was brought they had ceased their work,
filled up the hole with dust collected from the floor, put some dust
of the stone over it, and smoothed it down, so that it would not have
been noticed by anyone