on me, and then--well, something
terrible would certainly happen.

The sky looked very dark and cloudy just then, and you may easily
imagine how bitterly I regretted my foolishness in running away.

I lay awake for an hour or more thinking in this fashion, and then I
fell into a fitful slumber.

How long I slept, I don't know; but when I awoke it was with a strange
feeling that I was not alone--that some one was in the cell with me.

I was wide awake in an instant, and my heart beat so loudly that I
fancied I could hear it.

I listened intently, and presently heard a light "pitapat," as if some
one was walking across the floor; and while I was trying to muster up
courage to call out, there was a sharp click, a flood of light illumined
the cell, and I saw that the intruder was a man.

He was standing near the opposite wall, and in his hand he held a
lighted wax taper, with the aid of which he was taking a survey of the
room.

As he turned slowly around, I saw that he was young, rather
good-looking, and well-dressed, and at the same time he saw me.

He started, and with an exclamation of alarm, dropped the taper.

In an instant, however, he recovered the taper and himself, and advanced
toward me.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "And how did you get here?"

I related, in a few words, who I was and how I came to be incarcerated.

He laughed lightly when I had finished, and said:

"I suppose you wonder how _I_ came here. Look!"

I looked, and saw an aperture in the wall about two feet square.

"I came through that," he said, laughing softly at my evident
astonishment. "My cell is on the other side. Now, I am going to escape
from this jail, and I want you to go with me."

I know now that his reason was to prevent my giving an alarm; but I
thought then that it was because he took pity on me.

And I joyfully accepted his offer, although I couldn't imagine how he
was to manage it, and I made a remark to that effect.

"Easy enough," he said. "You have only a lock on your door, while
there's a dozen bolts on mine. That's why I dug through, expecting to
find the cell empty. However, it is all right. Take off your shoes."

I did so, and then my companion put out the lights, having first opened
the door with what looked like a piece of wire.

Then he whispered to me to keep hold of his sleeve, step cautiously and
not let my shoes fall, and then we moved out into the corridor, now
black as Egypt.

My guide also