that few, without the hope of liberty to spur them, could have accomplished.  Three times he failed; without something more of purchase for his hold, he felt the thing was beyond his powers.  The question was, how broad was the stone coping?  If, by a sudden spring, he could catch the other side of it, he might succeed; but if he missed, his hands would slide from the smooth surface, his feet could not regain their stand-point, and he would fall backward twenty feet or so upon the stone courtyard.

There was nothing for it but to run the risk.  He gathered his strength together, shut his eyes, and made a vigorous spring:  one hand caught a firm gripe, and, after a sharp struggle, the other gained it; then he drew himself slowly up, and lay down in the gutter of the roof to gather breath and look about him.  The prison was built like the four spokes of a wheel; and, indeed, with the high wall circling round it, did closely resemble that image.  Nearly the whole of the building could have been seen, had it been light enough, from his present position; but, as it was, only the west wing was dimly visible, with its guardian tower standing blackly up against its dark back-ground of wintry night sky.  He could not make out the sentry on its top; but now and then, when his circuit brought him nearest to his hiding-place, he could hear his measured footfall.

Like a creeping thing, for he scarce used hand or foot at all, Richard slowly crawled and slid along the sloping roof, then swiftly over the vertex, while the patrol was at the most distant portion of his round, and then once more, motionless and almost breathless, he lay down behind the western parapet.  The exercising-yard, into which it was his object to drop, was just below him; but it was necessary to find some object to which to fasten his rope; and here he perceived how futile would have been his plan of escape without assistance from without; for here, having slid down it, he must needs leave his rope tied to a neighboring chimney.  There was not length enough to cut off, and be of any service afterward for the descent of the external wall, nigh sixty feet in height.  If Balfour failed him, it was now, indeed, clear to him that his whole design must fail.  Yonder towering wall, higher even than his own present elevated position, could never be scaled by foot and hand, with only the help of a spout—­nay, he doubted whether, even if he found the promised rope in position, he could even make use of that; for, though agile, he had none of the sailor’s cunning.

He made fast the coil which he had with him, however, and watching his opportunity, slid off the parapet into space.  Such a feat seems easy enough to read of; but to slide without noise down a loose and swinging rope for so great a distance is no slight task to one unused to such gymnastics; and, besides, he had to check himself at intervals (which took the skin off from his hands, although at the time he did