From either side of them came a tapping sound, three taps, one tap, four taps, one tap. They made the return signal. “_Trenck_,” said a low voice down the tunnel. “_Latude_,” answered one of the twenty. “All right!” came back the voice; “_Latude_, lead the way.” The men who replaced the boards had given a last backward look to the room and the window through which came the starlight. The slight and thin lieutenant was one of them. “I reckon even at home, in the four-poster in the best room, I’ll dream for a while that there’s a black, empty coal-mine below me!—_Shh!_—All right, sir.” There was a column moving through the tunnel, the tunnel into which from the several conspiring rooms there were openings, all masked, all concealed and guarded, one by this means, one by that, but alike with the infinite sharpened ingenuity of trapped creatures. The disposal of the earth that was burrowed out—genius had gone to that, genius and a patience incredible. Inch by inch the way had opened. There has been the measuring, too, the calculation of distance.... They must dig upward and out at some point beyond the stockade—not too far beyond; they could not afford to dig forever. The tunnel was finished. To-night they were coming out, coming out somewhere beyond the stockade. There was a rugged gully, they knew, and then at a little distance, the river—the river that, on the other side, laved the Virginian shore. Let them but surprise, overpower whatever picket force might be stationed beyond the stockade, get to the river.... Trust them to swim the river! They crept—a hundred and odd men—through the stifling passage. They could not stand upright. The sweat drenched their bodies, their hands were wet against the walls. The tunnel that they had been digging for ages had never appeared a short one; to-night it seemed to stretch across infinity. At last they reached the end, the upward slope and then the round chamber that they had made beyond—beyond the stockade! The head of the line had a bit of candle, hoarded against this moment. The spurt of the match caused a start throughout the stretched line, the pale flicker of the candle showed drawn faces.