The gaoler returned.

“The cell is ready, Excellency,” he said.

“Take away the prisoner,” commanded the Governor, gruffly.

CHAPTER XVIII

 Cell number one

Cell Number One was a great improvement on Number Nine.  There was no shelf of rock, or stone bench, but a cot bed in the corner, a table, and a wooden chair.  The living spring issued from the living rock in a corner of the room.  When the gaoler and his assistant had retired and shoved in the outside bolts, Jack lit his candle and a cigarette, feeling almost happy.  He surveyed the premises now with more care.  The bed was of iron and fastened to the floor.  On the top of it was a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets.  At its head a little triangular shelf of rock had been left in the corner, and on this reposed a basin of tin, while a coarse piece of sacking took the place of a towel.  Jack threw off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, intent on a satisfactory wash.  He heard something jingle in the pockets, and forgetting for the moment what it could possibly be, thrust his hand in, and pulled out a glass-stoppered bottle of ozak.  He held it out at arm’s length, and stared at it for some moments like a man hypnotized.

“Holy Saint Peter!” he cried, “to think that I should have forgotten this!”

He filled the tin basin with water, and placed it on the table.  Again he dissolved a minute portion of the chemical, and again filled the syringe.

“I must leave no marks on the wall that may arouse attention,” he said, and taking the full syringe to the arch over the torrent, and placing the candle on the floor beside him, he gently pushed in the piston.  The spray struck the rock, and the rock dissolved slightly but perceptibly.  Coming back to the table he stood for a few minutes in deep thought.  Although the cot bed was fixed to the floor, and although it was possible that the shelf in the next cell coincided with its position, the risk of discovery was too great to cut a passage between the two cells there.  The obvious spot to attack was the interior of the tunnel through which the streamlet ran, but Jack, testing the temperature of the water with his hand, doubted his physical ability to remain in that ice-cold current more than a few minutes at a time, and if he worked in the tunnel he would be all but submerged.  He feared he would perish with cold and cramp before he had made any impression on the rock.

To the edge of the stream he drew the table, and, mounting it, examined the upper orifice through which the water escaped when the cell was full.  He found he could stand on the table and work in comfort until he had excavated sufficient rock to allow him to clamber into the upper tunnel and so continue his operations.  The water he used would flow through the tunnel, and down to the main stream in the next cell.  All he had to do was to dissolve a semi-circular hole in the rock that would bend round the end of those steel bars, and enter the tunnel again on the other side.  Eager to be at work, he took the full basin, shoved it far along the tunnel until it was stopped by the bars, then, placing his candle beside it, and standing on the table, he began operations.