in various ways, as already
mentioned.

The secret had been kept well, but not too well. Some
workers had divulged it to their friends. Others of the
prisoners had discovered that something was going on, and
had been let into the affair on a pledge of secrecy. By the
time the tunnel was completed its existence was known to
something more than one hundred out of the eleven hundred
prisoners. These were all placed on their word of honor to
give no hint of the enterprise.

The night of February 8 was signalized by the opening of the
outward end of the tunnel. A passage was dug upwards, and an
opening made sufficiently large to permit the worker to take
a look outward into the midnight air. What he saw gave him a
frightful shock. The distance had been miscalculated; the
opening was on the _wrong_ side of the fence; there in full
sight was one of the sentinels, pacing his beat with loaded
musket.

Here was a situation that needed nerve and alertness. The
protruded head was quickly withdrawn, and the earth which
had been removed rapidly replaced, it being packed as
tightly as possible from below to prevent its falling in.
Word of the perilous error was sent back, and as the whisper
passed from ear to ear every heart throbbed with a nervous
shock. They had barely escaped losing the benefit of their
weeks of exhausting labor.

The opening had been at the outward edge of the fence. The
tunnel was now run two feet farther, and an opening again
made. It was now on the inside of the fence, and in a safe
place, for the stable adjoining the yard was disused.

The evening of the 9th was that fixed upon for flight. At a
little after nine o'clock the exodus began. Those in the
secret made their way to the cooking-room. The fireplace
passage was opened, and such was the haste to avail
themselves of it that the men almost struggled for
precedence. Rules had been made, but no order could be
kept. Silence reigned, however. No voice was raised above a
whisper; every footstep was made as light as possible. It
had been decided that fifty men should leave that night, and
fifty the next, the prison clerk being deceived at roll-call
by an artifice which had been practised more than once
before, that of men leaving one end of the line and
regaining the other unseen, to answer to the names of
others. But the risk of discovery was too great. Every man
wanted to be among the first. It proved impossible to
restrain the anxious prisoners.