man turned towards him. At the southeast corner was a half-ruined
turret. It was upheld, to some extent, by a thick growth of ivy;
but great masses of crumbling stone had fallen inward and lay in the
courtyard, heaped against the wall. From this turret he was to climb
down by the ivy and the heaps of stone into the courtyard; and, softly
opening the unlocked gate, to make his way along the passage to a
subterranean tunnel communicating with it. Centuries ago this tunnel
had formed a secret corridor between the fortress and a tower on the
neighbouring hill; now it was quite disused and blocked in many places
by the falling in of the rocks. No one but the smugglers knew of a
certain carefully-hidden hole in the mountain-side which they had
bored through to the tunnel; no one suspected that stores of forbidden
merchandise were often kept, for weeks together, under the very ramparts
of the fortress itself, while the customs-officers were vainly searching
the houses of the sullen, wrathful-eyed mountaineers. At this hole the
Gadfly was to creep out on to the hillside, and make his way in the dark
to a lonely spot where Martini and a smuggler would be waiting for him.
The one great difficulty was that opportunities to unlock the gate after
the evening patrol did not occur every night, and the descent from the
window could not be made in very clear weather without too great a risk
of being observed by the sentinel. Now that there was really a fair
chance of success, it must not be missed.

He sat down and began to eat some of the bread. It at least did not
disgust him like the rest of the prison food, and he must eat something
to keep up his strength.

He had better lie down a bit, too, and try to get a little sleep; it
would not be safe to begin filing before ten o'clock, and he would have
a hard night's work.

And so, after all, the Padre had been thinking of letting him escape!
That was like the Padre. But he, for his part, would never consent to
it. Anything rather than that! If he escaped, it should be his own doing
and that of his comrades; he would have no favours from priests.

How hot it was! Surely it must be going to thunder; the air was so close
and oppressive. He moved restlessly on the pallet and put the bandaged
right hand behind his head for a pillow; then drew it away again. How it
burned and throbbed! And all the old wounds were beginning to ache, with
a dull, faint persistence. What was the matter with th