eak out of Libby without such outside
assistance promised nothing but a fruitless sacrifice of life and the
savage punishment of the survivors. Hence the project, although eagerly
and exhaustively discussed, was prudently abandoned.

All talk of escape by the general crowd now wholly ceased, and the
captives resigned themselves to their fate and waited with depressed
spirits for the remote contingency of an exchange. The quiet thus gained
was Rose's opportunity. He sought Hamilton and told him that they must
by some stratagem regain access to Rat Hell, and that the tunnel project
must be at once revived. The latter assented to the proposition, and the
two began earnestly to study the means of gaining an entrance without
discovery into this coveted base of operations.

They could not even get into the room above the cellar they wanted to
reach, for that was the hospital, and the kitchen's heavy wall shut
them off therefrom. Neither could they break the heavy wall that divided
this cellar from the carpenter's shop, which had been the nightly
rendezvous of the party while the breakout was under consideration, for
the breach certainly would be discovered by the workmen or Confederates,
some of whom were in there constantly during daylight.

There was, in fact, but one plan by which Rat Hell could be reached
without detection, and the conception of this device and its successful
execution were due to the stout-hearted Hamilton. This was to cut a hole
in the back of the kitchen fireplace; the incision must be just far
enough to preserve the opposite or hospital side intact. It must then be
cut downward to a point below the level of the hospital floor, then
eastward into Rat Hell, the completed opening thus to describe the
letter "S." It must be wide enough to let a man through, yet the wall
must not be broken on the hospital side above the floor, nor marred on
the carpenter's-shop side below it. Such a break would be fatal, for
both of these points were conspicuously exposed to the view of the
Confederates every hour in the day. Moreover, it was imperatively
necessary that all trace of the beginning of the opening should be
concealed, not only from the Confederate officials and guards, who were
constantly passing the spot every day, but from the hundreds of
uninitiated prisoners who crowded around the stove just in front of it
from dawn till dark.

Work could be possible only between the hours of ten at night, when the
ro