mbered up and went through the same terrible ordeal. He was not,
however, so fortunate as his friend, for, when he jumped, three of the
stays gave way, which had the effect of slightly deranging the motion of
the umbrella, and he came to the ground with such violence that he lay
stunned and motionless, leading his horrified comrade to fear that he
was killed. In a few minutes, however, he revived, and, on examination,
found that no bones had been broken.

"Now, Ben, what next?" said Bill, getting up, and giving himself a
shake.

"The wall," said Ben, "can't be far from where we stand. If there wos
only a bit of moonshine it would help us."

"Better as it is," whispered Bill, groping about, for the night was so
intensely dark that it was scarcely possible to see a yard. "I knows
the way to the harbour, if we only manage to get out.--Ah, here's the
wall, but it's an oncommon high one!"

This was indeed too true. The top of the wall was faintly visible like
a black line across the dark sky, and when Ben mounted on Bill's
shoulders, it was found that he could only reach to within three feet of
the bristling iron spikes with which it was surmounted. For
half-an-hour they groped about, and made the discovery that they were in
a small enclosure with bare walls of fifteen feet in height around them,
and not a projection of any kind large enough for a mouse to lay hold
of! In these circumstances many men would have given way to despair;
but that was a condition of mind which neither of our tars ever thought
of falling into. In the course of their explorations they came against
each other, and immediately began an animated conversation in whispers,
the result of which was that they groped for the umbrella, and, having
found it, cut off all the cords about it, with which they proceeded to
plait a rope strong enough to bear their weight. They sat down in
silence to the work, leaning against the prison wall, and wrought for a
full hour with the diligence of men whose freedom depends on their
efforts. When finished, the rope was found to be about a yard too short
for their purpose; but this defect was remedied by means of the canvas
of their parachute, which they tore up into strips, twisted into an
additional piece of rope, and spliced it to the other. A large loop was
made on the end of it. Going once more to the wall, Ben mounted on
Bill's shoulders, and threw the loop over the top of the wall; it
caught, as had be