Division 3 streamed beneath the smoky lamps out of the close and dark hall into the dark and close rooms. In each of these were tiers of bunks, none too wide. Each boasted one grated window which let in a very little of the summer night. The doors clanged behind the entering men; outside in the hall and at all exits the sentries were posted. Within a few minutes the doors were opened again. “Rounds!” Officer in blue, men in blue, swinging lantern, vague breath of the outer world—the guardian group went through each room, examining keenly the tiers of bunks each with its shadowy reclining or sitting inmate, lifting the lantern to peer into corners, shaking the window bars to see that there had been no filing. Ten minutes, and with or without a gruff “good night!” rounds were over. A half hour passed, an hour passed. It was a dark night and breathless. The stars that might be seen through the window, above the stockade, showed like white-hot metal points stuck through a heavy pall. Without the door of a room in which were packed twenty officers sounded, passing, the tread of the sentry. The sound died down the hall. A man stepped lightly and quietly from his bunk. Another left his as quietly,—another,—another. Those in the upper tier swung themselves down, noiseless as cats. All twenty were out on the floor. Whatever of clothing had been laid aside was resumed. Two men took their places by the door, ear to the heavy panel. Two watched at the window. All movement was made with the precision of the drill-yard and in the quietude of the tomb. In the corner, near the window, was a bunk in which had slept and waked a lieutenant of nineteen, a light, thin, small-boned youngster. Now four men, bending over, lifted noiselessly the boards upon which the lieutenant had lain. Below, stretched smooth, stained and coloured like the floor, was a bit of tarpaulin, obtained after God knows what skilful manœuvring! The men turned this back. Beneath gaped a ragged hole, a yard across, black and deep. Up came a colder air and an earthy smell. In this room Maury Stafford was the leader. With a whispered word he put his hands on the edge of the excavation and swung himself down, dropping at last several feet to the floor of the tunnel. One by one the twenty followed, the four from door and window coming last. As best they could, these pulled the boards of the lieutenant’s bunk in place over the entrance to that underground, which, with heart-stifling delays and dangers, they had digged. For months they had been digging—a hundred and odd men conspiring together, digging in the night-time, with infinite caution, with strange, inadequate tools, in darkness and silence and danger, a road to Freedom.