I am sure, by their looks, that some of our escort would
willingly have aided us, only that it was impossible to do so;
and, knowing how large a number of persons would sympathize with
us, I cannot blame them so very much for taking steps to prevent
our escape."

"I never saw such a fellow as you for finding excuses for people,"
O'Sullivan said, almost angrily. "You look at things as calmly as
if they concerned other people, and not ourselves."

Kennedy smiled.

"If an opinion is to be worth anything, O'Sullivan, it must be an
impartial one; and it is best to look at the matter calmly, and to
form our plans, whatever they may be, as if they were intended to
be carried out by other people."

O'Sullivan laughed.

"My dear fellow, if you had not gone through those adventures, I
should have said that you had mistaken your vocation, and were cut
out for a philosopher rather than a soldier. However, although
your luck did not suffice to save the Salisbury from capture, we
must still hope that it has not altogether deserted you; and
anyhow, I am convinced that, if it be possible for anyone to
effect an escape from this dismal place, you are the man."

Newgate, in those days, stood across the street, and constituted
one of the entrances to the city. Its predecessor had been burnt,
in the great fire of 1666, and the new one was at this time less
than forty years old, and, though close and badly ventilated, had
not yet arrived at the stage of dirt and foulness which afterwards
brought about the death of numbers of prisoners confined there,
and in 1750 occasioned an outbreak of jail fever, which not only
swept away a large proportion of the prisoners, but infected the
court of the Old Bailey close to it, causing the death of the lord
mayor, several aldermen, a judge, many of the counsel and jurymen,
and of the public present at the trials.

The outward appearance of the building was handsome, but the cells
were, for the most part, small and ill ventilated.

"This place is disgraceful," O'Neil said. "There is barely room
for our three pallets. The air is close and unwholesome, now, but
in the heat of summer it must be awful. If their food is as vile
as their lodging, the lookout is bad, indeed."

"I fancy the cells in the French jails are no better," O'Sullivan
said. "No doubt, in the state prisons, high-born prisoners are
made fairly comfortable; but the ordinary prisoners and
malefactors, I have been told, suffer ho