the least noise. They may
give a few turns of the windlass to see if anyone has hold of the rope
below; be sure you do not make the slightest splashing or noise, for the
sound would be heard above to a certainty."

Ten minutes later they saw two heads appear above, and instantly
withdrew their feet from the bucket and made a stroke to the side, which
was but four feet distant, being careful as they did that no motion was
imparted to the rope. Then though it was too dark to see anything, they
heard the bucket lifted from the water. A minute later it fell back
again with a splash, then all was quiet.

"We are safe now, and can take our place in the bucket. They are
satisfied that if we did jump down here we are drowned. And now we must
think about climbing up."

"Aye, that will require a good deal of thinking," Ralph grumbled.

For some time there was silence; then Walter said, "The first thing to
do is to cut off the slack of the rope, there are some twelve feet of
it. Then we will unwind the strands of that. There are five or six large
strands as far as I can feel; we will cut them up into lengths of about
a couple of feet and we ought to be able to tie these to the rope in
such a way as not to slip down with our weight. If we tie them four
feet apart we can go up step by step; I don't see much difficulty about
that."

"No," Ralph said much more cheerfully, "I should think that we could
manage that."

They at once set to work. The rope was cut up and unravelled, and the
strands cut into pieces about two feet long. They then both set to work
trying to discover some way of fastening it by which it would not slip
down the rope. They made many fruitless attempts; each time that a
strand was fastened with a loop large enough for them to pass a leg
through, it slid down the rope when their weight was applied to it. At
last they succeeded in finding out a knot which would hold. This was
done by tying a knot close to one end of a piece of the strand, then
sufficient was left to form the loop, and the remainder was wound round
the rope in such a way that the weight only served to tighten its hold.

"Shall we begin at once?" Ralph said, when success was achieved.

"No, we had better wait until nightfall. The vibration of the rope
when our weight once gets on it might be noticed by anyone crossing the
courtyard."

"Do you think we have sufficient bits of rope," Ralph asked.

"Just enough, I think," Walter replied; "th