The convicts were crossing a patch of moorland towards the fields in which they were to work; the soft turf was beneath Rupert’s feet, the blue sky above his head, the scent of gorse, already blossoming, in his nostrils. The sweet sounds and sights and scents stirred his blood. He gazed down into the valley across the Dart. There lay Two Bridges, almost a stone’s throw away. Beyond, Post Bridge. He almost fancied he could see Blackthorn Farm! Were they still there, his loved ones, ekeing out a lonely, miserable existence, or had shame driven them away, and had the home they owned been taken? With a fortune lying hidden beneath the land! Sometimes he had wondered whether the story Despard told him about the traces of radium in the pitch-blende had been an hallucination on his part. But long ago, a month or two after his arrival at Princetown, he had made up his mind and sworn a solemn oath that he would wait for a chance of escape. He knew that no convict had ever succeeded in getting right away, but now and then some unfortunate had hidden on the moors for many days before he was captured. Knowing the country as he did it would be easy for Rupert, if he could make a dash for freedom, to get to Blackthorn Farm, see his father and tell him what lay hidden in the old mine just outside his very door. The place was mortgaged to Sir Reginald, and in that fact lay the one chance that Despard had been unable to either purchase or lease it. He would have to wait until Sir Reginald foreclosed and then buy it from him. Every week that passed, every day, meant that the chance of the fortune was slipping away from his father. Rupert knew by the time of the year that more than nine months had passed since he had been tried and sentenced. Unless he escaped within the year it would be too late. It might be too late now, but it was worth the risk. To get out from the prison cell, or from the great walls that surrounded the prison itself, was practically impossible. His only hope had lain in being sent to work in the quarries or fields. And now the chance had come. It seemed as if Providence had sent it. Suddenly the word "Halt!" rang out. Automatically Rupert stopped. The convicts were lined up and their numbers called over. Rupert raised his eyes. The man on his left was speaking to him again—using his usual signals—a man who had often been his companion in exercise within the prison walls and whose one idea, curiously enough, had also been escape. Rupert did not look at him. His fists were clenched, every muscle in his body was tight and taut. It required all his self-restraint not to make a dash then and there. He looked up: the blue sky flecked with fleecy clouds was above him, the sweet smell of new-mown hay was everywhere in the air; the soft bleating of sheep and the barking of a dog came faintly down the breeze from Beardown Hill, and along the white dusty road he could see the carrier’s cart crawling to Post Bridge.