“That must have been the devil,” observed Richard.

“It was,” said Mr. Rolfe, significantly.

“‘Why, how on earth did you do it?’ asked the Smasher.  At least I suppose he did, for the conversation was not reported, as you shall hear.  ’With a mere nail, too.  Why, I’ve got a file, and yet I never thought of that.’

“‘A file!’ cried Jeffreys.  ‘Let’s look.  Give it to me.’

“But Molony wouldn’t give it him.  The case was this, you see.  If Jeffreys could have filed his irons off, and then the window-bars, he could have made a push for it; but he couldn’t wait for the other; the night was too far gone for that—­there was only time for one to free himself and get away.  The Smasher was willing enough to make an effort now; the other’s pluck had put a good heart into him.  But since he had been there so long, and never moved a hand to help hisself, Jeffreys thought he might stop a little longer; it seemed to him dog-in-the-manger like to be refused the file—­at least that’s my view of what he thought; though he’s been blamed a good deal for what afterward happened.”

“But what did happen?”

“Well, they got to high words; the t’other wouldn’t give up the file; and when Jeffreys tried to get hold of it, what did the aggravation Smasher do—­for you see he was used to bolting half-crowns and such like—­but swallow the file!”

“Why, that must have killed him?” observed Yorke.

“So Jeffreys concluded,” returned Mr. Rolfe, coolly; “and indeed that was his defense when his trial came on.  He pleaded that Molony was dead already.  ’I did not put the file down his throat, though I did deprive him of it afterward.  I was obliged to do it.’  He made an anatomy of him with the nail, in fact, just as the surgeons do with their dissecting-knives, though not so neat, in order to get at the file.  An ugly job, I call it; but it was a very pretty case, the lawyers said, as to whether murder had been done or not.”

“But did this Jeffreys get off?”

“Upon the trial—­yes; but not from the prison.  He got into the yard all right, and climbed the wall by making steps of the file and the nail; but, in dropping on the other side, he broke his leg, and so they nabbed him.  It’s a very hard nut to crack, is Lingmoor, I can tell you.”

With these and similar incidents of prison-life, Mr. Rolfe regaled his companion’s ears.  The sound of this man’s voice, muffled as it was, notwithstanding the nature of his talk, was pleasant to Richard after so many months of enforced silence.  After long starvation the stomach is thankful for even garbage; and so it is with the mind.  Moreover, any thing would have seemed better than to sit and think during that hateful journey.  The railway part of it was by far the worst.  To be made a show of at the various stations—­every one curious to see how convicts looked in their full regimentals, chained and ironed; to behold the other passengers