“On what?”

“On the stone slab in the centre window.”

“Yes, I see it plain enough.  It looks to me like three turkey-buzzards sitting on a barrel of molasses.”

“Three allurions in chief over a tower proper, maybe.  Those are the arms of the Provence De Hautevilles.  But it cannot be that.  They have no chateau within a hundred leagues.  No, I cannot tell where we are.”

He was dropping back to the floor, and put his weight upon the bar.  To his amazement, it came away in his hand.

“Look, Amos, look!” he cried.

“Ah, you’ve found it out!  Well, I did that during the night.”

“And how?  With your knife?”

“No; I could make no way with my knife; but when I got the bar out of the grate, I managed faster.  I’ll put this one back now, or some of those folks down below may notice that we have got it loose.”

“Are they all loose?”

“Only the one at present, but we’ll get the other two out during the night.  You can take that bar out and work with it, while I use my own picker at the other.  You see, the stone is soft, and by grinding it you soon make a groove along which you can slip the bar.  It will be mighty queer if we can’t clear a road for ourselves before morning.”

“Well, but even if we could get out into the courtyard, where could we turn to then?”

“One thing at a time, friend.  You might as well stick at the Kennebec because you could not see how you would cross the Penobscot.  Anyway, there is more air in the yard than in here, and when the window is clear we shall soon plan out the rest.”

The two comrades did not dare to do any work during the day, for fear they should be surprised by the jailer, or observed from without.  No one came near them, but they ate their loaves and drank their water with the appetite of men who had often known what it was to be without even such simple food as that.  The instant that night fell they were both up upon the pegs, grinding away at the hard stone and tugging at the bars.  It was a rainy night, and there was a sharp thunder-storm, but they could see very well, while the shadow of the arched window prevented their being seen.  Before midnight they had loosened one bar, and the other was just beginning to give, when some slight noise made them turn their heads, and there was their jailer standing, open-mouthed in the middle of the cell, staring up at them.

It was De Catinat who observed him first, and he sprang down at him in an instant with his bar; but at his movement the man rushed for the door, and drew it after him just as the American’s tool whizzed past his ear and down the passage.  As the door slammed, the two comrades looked at each other.  The guardsman shrugged his shoulders and the other whistled.

“It is scarce worth while to go on,” said De Catinat.

“We may as well be doing that as anything else.  If my picker had been an inch lower I’d have had him.  Well, maybe he’ll get a stroke, or break his neck down those stairs.  I’ve nothing to work with now, but a few rubs with your bar will finish the job.  Ah, dear!  You are right, and we are fairly treed!”