Wearily the days dragged themselves into weeks, and still no word of hope came to cheer me. There was, however, one incident that gave me much pleasure. On the afternoon before the day set for our execution Donald Roy made his escape. Some one had given him a file and he had been tinkering at his irons for days. We were in the yard for our period of exercise, and half a dozen of us, pretending to be in earnest conversation together, surrounded him while he snapped the irons. Some days before this time he had asked permission to wear the English dress, and he now coolly sauntered out of the prison with some of the visitors quite unnoticed by the guard. The morning dawned on which nine of us were to be executed. Our coffee was served to us in the room off the yard, and we drank it in silence. I noticed gladly that Macdonald was not with us, and from that argued that he had not been recaptured. "Here's wishing him a safe escape from the country," said Creagh. "Lucky dog!" murmured Leath, "I hope they won't nail him again." Brandy was served. Creagh named the toast and we drank it standing. "King James!" The governor of the prison bustled in just as the broken glasses shivered behind us. "Now gentlemen, if you are quite ready." Three sledges waited for us in the yard to draw us to the gallows tree. There was no cowardly feeling, but perhaps a little dilatoriness in getting into the first sledge. Five minutes might bring a reprieve for any of us, and to be in the first sledge might mean the difference between life and death. "Come, gentlemen! If you please! Let us have no more halting," said the governor, irritably. Creagh laughed hardily and vaulted into the sledge. "Egad, you're right! We'll try a little haltering for a change." Morgan followed him, and I took the third place. A rider dismounted at the prison gate. "Is there any news for me?" asked one poor fellow eagerly. "Yes, the sheriff has just come and is waiting for you," jeered one of the guards with brutal frankness. The poor fellow stiffened at once. "Very well. I am ready." A heavy rain was falling, but the crowd between the prison and Kennington Common was immense. At the time of our trials the mob had treated us in ruffianly fashion, but now we found a respectful silence. The lawyer Morgan was in an extremely irritable mood. All the way to the Common he poured into our inattentive ears a tale of woe about how his coffee had been cold that morning. Over and over again he recited to us the legal procedure for bringing the matter into the courts with sufficient effect to have the prison governor removed from his position.