as a speedy look about
presently assured me, a prisoner with very little hope of immediate
escape, for the doors were not only immovable, without even locks to
pick or panels to break in, but the place was bare of windows, and the
only communication which it could be said to have with the outside world
at all was a shaft rising from the ceiling almost to the top of the
house. Whether this served as a ventilator, or a means of lighting up
the hole when both doors were shut, it was much too inaccessible to
offer any apparent way of escape.

"Never was a man more thoroughly boxed in. As I realized how little
chance there was of any outside interference, how my captor, even if he
was seen leaving the house by the officer on duty, would be taken
for myself and so allowed to escape, I own that I felt my position a
hopeless one. But anger is a powerful stimulant, and I was mortally
angry, not only with Sears, but with myself. So when I was done swearing
I took another look around, and, finding that there was no getting
through the walls, turned my attention wholly to the shaft, which would
certainly lead me out of the place if I could only find means to mount
it.

"And how do you think I managed to do this at last? A look at my
bedraggled, lime-covered clothes may give you some idea. I cut a passage
for myself up those perpendicular walls as the boy did up the face of
the natural bridge in Virginia. Do you remember that old story in the
Reader? It came to me like an inspiration as I stood looking up from
below, and though I knew that I should have to work most of the way in
perfect darkness, I decided that a man's life was worth some risk, and
that I had rather fall and break my neck while doing something than to
spend hours in maddening inactivity, only to face death at last from
slow starvation.

"I had a knife, an exceedingly good knife, in my pocket--and for the
first few steps I should have the light of my electric torch. The
difficulty (that is, the first difficulty) was to reach the shaft from
the floor where I stood. There was but one article of furniture in the
room, and that was something between a table and a desk. No chairs,
and the desk was not high enough to enable me to reach the mouth of the
shaft. If I could turn it on end there might be some hope. But this did
not look feasible. However, I threw off my coat and went at the thing
with a vengeance, and whether I was given superhuman power or whether
the clu