away lest he should excite suspicion, and loitered
with his former heavy weary step towards the
doorway of the inner court-yard.

"Goin' in, are you?" said the turnkey.
"Yes," replied the prisoner.

The official stalked on before him into the
adjoining square, then opening a door, passed
through a long stone corridor, and stopping
before a cell door, unlocked it. "If you want
anything, you can call," he said, graciously,
through the trap in the door as he relocked it.

"Thank ye," answered the condemned man.
If the official had been better skilled in reading
faces, he might have looked to the fastening of
the cell-door a little more carefully.

Tim Welsh had noticed that the bolt of the
lock was very shaky, and he knew that a shaky
bolt can be forced back.

It would not be dusk for a long while yet, but
he could not wait; the one chance—desperate—
hopeless, as it seemed—must be tried quickly.
While the turnkey's steps re-echoed in his hearing,
he, still fettered, unscrewed the iron leg of
his bedstead, and, stealing forward, waited until
he heard the great doors at the end of the corridor
clash; then, putting the leg of the bedstead
between the bolt and the wall, he strove with
all his strength to force it back. But it resisted,
and he dared not make a noise.

In despair he replaced the leg, and sat down
to recover breath. Soon, he heard another turnkey
coming. He went to the cell-door and
called.

"What is it? What d'ye want?"

"A dhrink of wather, plase; I'm very
thirsty."

When the turnkey had brought in the water,
and retired, Welsh, who had been watching the
lock, saw that, though gone to its place, it was
not half as far home as before. He drank the
water to cool his burning mouth and parched
throat, and, seizing the iron leg again, listened
as before until the doors clashed, when, placing
the instrument in the old place, he—first gently
shaking the bolt—gave it a vigorous blow, the
sound of which was lost in the noisy echoes from
the shutting doors. The bolt shot back, he pulled
the door open, and peered around; returning to
his bed, he replaced the leg, and made up a bundle
under the clothes, as well as he could, with the
aid of the bolster; then closing the cell-door softly
after him, he ran lightly down the gallery to the
door that opened into the yard. The key was in
it, he turned the key, and, glancing around for
the second time, shut it after him and darted
across to the arched doorway, where a sentry
paced.

How to get past this soldier was the question,
while he trembled in mingled horror at the sound
of the "rap-rap" " rap, tap-tap" coming freshly
to his ears, and the thought of probable freedom,
and more probable recapture. At this moment
the sentry turned back on his beat, and the
prisoner, crouching in the doorway, stole swiftly
along by the wall to the opposite side of the
yard, and slunk in beside a buttress. The open
sewer was on the same side but further down.
Trembling in every limb, he lay huddled up, not
daring to move, lest he should attract attention,
until the sentry turned for the third time. Then
he fled along by the wall, and dropping into the
sewer crept into the darkness there.

"Safe for a while, anyhow, glory be to God!"
he gasped.

But as the poor creature pushed his way
onward, through the foul air, in a stooping
position with his fettered hands pushed out before
him to feel his way, a deadly sickness came over
him. Still the faintly glimmering prospect of
escape kept him up.

Fortunately there were but few rats. Five
or six times he felt them biting at his feet, from
which his coarse stockings had long been cut to
pieces, and heard them squeaking as they scrambled
up the dripping walls. "Will I iver smell
a fresh breeze again, Lord help me!" he groaned.
As he crawled along under the principal streets
he could hear the carriages rolling over his
head, and at one grating to which he came, he
heard the words of a song, chorused by some
men near a public-house. At length, after he
had been more than eight hours on his way,
he heard the rolling of the river, saw a faint
gleam through the pitchy darkness, felt a faint
fresh breeze from the flowing tide. A few more
steps—falling in his eagerness—and the glimmer
grew clearer, the breeze grew fresher, and
he reached the river bank.

It was just four o'clock, and the clear solemn
light of the dawn was shed over the sleeping
city; the gardens were fresh in early fruit and
flowers; the noble river rippling serenely on,
and the cottages, trees, and meadows lay far on
the other side. Very far off they looked, and
the river—cold, broad, and deep, lay between;
yet the undaunted fugitive, fettered, aching,
sick, exhausted, muttered another prayer, and
plunged in.

The cold water gave him a temporary strength;
keeping his eyes fixed on the goal of his hopes,
he swam on, almost entirely by the movement
of his legs and feet, as his hands were nearly
useless to him.

But the bracing effect of the cold shock was
soon followed by a distressing numbness. His
utmost efforts barely sufficed to keep his head
above water and propel him slowly onward.
Slower and fainter became each stroke, and a
wave of the rising tide rushed over his head,
when with a gurgling moan he made a last
effort and his feet touched the bottom. He
now stood upright, and slowly waded to the
low muddy shore, where he sank down on the
sedge and sea-pinks, and swooned away.

"I must be stirrin' meself," said Pat Moran
to his wife, about half-past four o'clock that
morning. " I've a power to do. I've to take
the cowlt to the fair, an' the turnip field to
plough afore I go."

Just as the first beams of golden sunlight
were resting on the cabin chimneys, and on
the high buildings of the city hills opposite, he
led his two horses from their stable to the