to
discover the name of the person to whom they were so much
indebted.

Chapter 9: An Escape From Newgate.

After being allowed to remain an hour at the table, the prisoners
were again marched off to their cells.

"I wish we had Mike with us," Desmond said, as he and his comrades
discussed the possibility of escape. "He is a shrewd fellow, and
would probably be allowed greater freedom in moving about the
prison than we are; but I was sure that we should see no more of
him after we left Harwich.

"Of course, the first question is, are we to try bribery, or to
work our way out of this cell?"

"I think that it would be dangerous to try bribery," O'Sullivan
remarked. "Our turnkey is a sour-faced rascal. I am convinced
that, if we were to try to bribe him, he would denounce us at
once. Not from any principle, you know, but because he would think
that it would pay him better to do so, and so obtain promotion and
reward, rather than to accept our money and run the risk of being
detected and hanged."

"I don't blame him," O'Neil said. "He is, as you say, a
sour-looking rascal, but I don't think that he is a fool, and none
but a fool would run that risk for the sake of the money that we
could give him; for, in any case, we should have to retain a
portion of our store, in order to obtain disguises and maintain
ourselves till we could find means of crossing the channel."

"Then let us put that idea altogether aside, O'Neil, and give our
whole attention to the manner in which we are to escape."

"The manner in which we are to try to make our escape!" O'Neil
repeated, with a laugh.

"Well, put it that way if you like. Now, in the first place, there
is the window, in the second the door, and lastly the walls and
floor."

"The door would withstand a battering ram," O'Sullivan said. "I
noticed, as I went out, that it was solid oak some four inches
thick, with two bolts as well as the lock, and, moreover, if we
could get through it we should be no nearer escaping than we are
at present. What with the corridors and passages, and the turnkeys
and the outer gate, that course seems to me impossible.

"Let us come to the second point, the window."

They looked up at it. The sill was fully six feet from the ground.
The window was a little over a foot wide, with a heavy bar running
down the centre, and cross bars.

"The first point is to see where it looks out on," Desmond said.
"I will stand against the wall, and as